UC-NRLF 


. 


GIFT  OF 
CAROLINE  E.    LE   CQNTE 


/~ 

/& 


MEMOIRS 


OF 


CELEBRATED  CHARACTERS. 


ALPHONSE  DE  J.AMARTINE, 

AUTHOR  OF  "HISTORY  OF  THE  GIRONDISTS,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


IN    TWO     VOLUMES. 

VOL.  I. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 
FRANKLIN     SQUARE. 

1854. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 


I- AGE 

INTRODUCTION V 

NELSON , 33 

HELOISE 103 

CHRISTOPHER    COLUMBUS 141 

BERNARD    DE    PALISSY,   THE    POTTER 233 

ROOSTAM ' 267 

MARCUS    TULLIUS    CICERO    ....                  335 


INTRODUCTION. 


HISTORY  is  the  legitimate  repository  of  the^records  of 
the  civil,  religious,  and  moral  condition  of  nations,  at  vari 
ous  periods  of  their  existence.  It  is  the  written  world, 
human  nature  in  relief,  evoked  from  its  ashes,  resuming 
soul,  life,  motion,  and  speech,  before  us  and  before  posteri 
ty,  and  affording  for  our  instruction  a  lesson  and  example 
for  the  future,  in  the  eternal  drama  of  humanity,  represent 
ed  in  this  vast  arena,  girt  with  tombs,  of  which  the  dust  is 
the  ashes  of  what  once  was  man.  History  is  the  picture 
of  human  destiny,  which  memory  presents,  to  excite,  some 
times  admiration  and  applause,  at  other  times  horror  and 
aversion,  according  as  virtue  or  crime,  barbarism  or  civil 
ization,  are  placed  before  us,  but  always  with  advantage  to 
ourselves.  In  a  word,  history  is  to  a  nation  what  the  fac 
ulty  of  memory  is  to  individuals,  the  link  of  unity  and  con 
tinuity  between  our  existence  of  yesterday  and  our  exist 
ence  of  to-day ;  the  basis  of  all  our  experience,  and,  by 
means  of  experience,  the  source  of  all  improvement.  With 
out  history,  then,  there  would  be  no  social  advancement, 
no  progressive  civilization,  in  a  nation.  With  history,  we 
scarcely  need  any  other  lesson.  History  knows  all  things, 
contains  all  things,  teaches  all  things  ;  not  in  winged  words 
which  strike  the  ear  without  impressing  the  mind,  but  in 
great  and  striking  actions.  It  renders  us  impassioned  and 
enthusiastic  sharers  in  the  scenes  of  the  past,  filling  our 
eyes  with  tears,  and  making  our  hearts  palpitate  with  emo- 


vj  INTRODUCTION. 

tion.  It  fills  us  with  enthusiasm  or  pity  by  our  sympathy 
with  its  impersonation  of  a  hero,  a  sage,  or  a  martyr,  with 
whom  we  completely  identify  ourselves ;  and  in  so  far  as 
our  distance  from  the  events  makes  us  more  impartial,  and 
impartiality  induces  justice,  we  derive  much  more  moral 
benefit  from  the  contemplation  of  the  past,  than  even  from 
the  observation  of  the  present.  As  regards  the  men  of 
other  days,  there  is  nothing  to  warp  our  consciences ;  no 
personal  interest  to  corrupt  us,  no  popularity  to  fascinate, 
no  acknowledged  hatred  to  repel :  we  consider,  revolve, 
and  decide  with  the  impartiality  and  unerring  judgment  of 
innate  and  unbiased  rectitude.  The  ultimate  result  of  all 
our  impressions  is  an  aversion  to  evil  and  a  love  for  good. 
Virtue  increases  and  becomes  more  deeply  rooted  in  nations 
which  have  grown  old  with  these  historical  associations 
and  reminiscences,  and  we  may  say,  without  risk  of  error, 
that  the  country  which  has  the  most  history  is  consequent 
ly  that  which  has  the  greatest  display  of  virtues.  A  series 
of  historical  biographies,  therefore,  may  with  propriety  be 
designated  a  Journal  of  Civilization. 

We  are  of  opinion  that  history  is,  of  all  human  studies, 
that  which  contains  the  greatest  amount  of  instruction,  of 
principles,  and  of  ideas  in  the  facts  that  it  relates  ;  because 
narration  is  the  most  popular  and  most  attractive  form  of 
persuasion ;  because  humanity,  viewed  as  a  whole,  is  the 
most  interesting  subject  for  man,  and  because  the  spirit  of 
the  world  itself  is  but  a  great  and  unending  tale  repeated 
from  age  to  age,  the  poem  of  God,  the  source  of  human  in 
spiration  ! 

Is  not  every  man,  in  his  transit  through  the  world,  con 
tinually  asking  himself  these  questions,  Whence  come  I? 
Whither  am  I  going  ?  Philosophy  and  religion  answer 
them  with  reference  to  things  supernatural,  but  without 
these  two  obstinate  questions  ceasing  to  persist  in  present- 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

ing  themselves,  century  after  century,  to  every  man  coming 
into  this  world. 

With  reference,  also,  to  the  purely  human  question  of 
civilization,  a  man  asks  himself  these  two  questions : 
Whence  come  I?  Whither  am  I  going?  The  generality 
have  not  even  leisure  to  listen  to  the  answer,  but  pass  on 
without  knowing  any  thing  of  this  mystery  of  their  origin, 
their  progress,  and  their  end— sons  of  a  family  whose  her 
itage  is  immortality,  but  who  know  not  their  titles  or  their 
ancestry. 

To  those  who,  like  ourselves,  have  not  their  bread  to 
earn,  and  who  have  time  to  listen  to  the  answer,  History 
alone  can  reply.     We  wish  that  she  should  now  reply  to 
all  men.     We  desire  that  no  man  shall  come  into  this 
world,  and  leave  it  without  making  himself  acquainted 
with  the  place  he  occupies  in  the  order  of  time,  the  origin 
and  history  of  his  race,  the  starting-point  and  progress  of 
ideas  and  things  which  form  what  is  called  its  civilization, 
the  successive  stages  of  advancement,  interrupted,  resumed, 
increasing  or  decreasing  of  this  civilization,  age  by  age, 
nation  by  nation,  and,  so  to  speak,  man  by  man.     We  de 
sire,  moreover,  that  this  complete  picture  of  humanity, 
painted  with  broad  strokes  for  the  eyes  of  the  people,  in 
place  of  being  a  lifeless  analytical  table  like  a  chronology, 
or  uninteresting,  as  all  abridgments  are,  shall  be  living,  like 
men,  and  vivid  like  a  drama.     Interest  is  the  true  key  to 
memory.     The  heart  of  man  only  remembers  what  moves 
and  impassions  it.     Now,  what  is  it  in  history  that  moves 
or  excites  the  masses?     Is  it  things  or  is  it  men?     It  is 
men— men  only.    You  can  not  excite  yourself  over  a  chart, 
or  be  moved  by  a  chronology.     These  abridged  and  ana 
lytic  processes  are  the  algebra  of  history,  freezing  while 
they  instruct.     This  algebra  of  memory  must  be  left  to  the 
learned,  who,  amid  their  dusty  books,  after  reading  all  their 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

lives,  and  crowding  their  repertories  with  millions  of  facts, 
names,  and  dates,  desire  to  make  a  synoptical  table  of  their 
science,  in  order  to  be  able  at  any  moment  to  lay  their  fin 
ger  on  the  date  of  a  year  or  the  name  of  a  dynasty. 

Popular  reading  is  not  like  this :  it  is  not  erudite,  but 
impassioned.  It  attaches  no  value  to  these  maps  of  ages, 
to  these  confused  ramifications  of  the  genealogical  tree  of 
the  human  race,  which  uselessly  darken  the  sphere  of  his 
tory  with  as  many  intersecting  lines  as  the  geographer's 
compass  traces  and  intertraces  on  the  surface  of  his  globe. 
No  :  the  mass  goes  straight  forward  to  a  small  number  of 
dominant  facts  which  overtop  history  as  lofty  mountain 
chains  divide  and  overlook  continents  :  it  fixes  these  facts 
in  its  memory  by  a  small  number  of  names  of  superior  and 
truly  historical  men,  who  have  associated  their  existence, 
their  lives,  or  their  death  with  these  facts  ;  and  if  the  his 
torian  have  the  art  or  the  gift  of  penetrating  in  thought 
into  the  spirit,  the  heart,  the  ideas,  the  passions,  the  public 
or  even  the  private  lives  of  these  great  men,  the  common 
run  of  readers  agrees  in  neglecting  all  secondary  events 
and  characters,  and  identifies  itself  with  him  in  thought, 
in  admiration,  in  emotion,  and  even  in  tears,  with  the 
thoughts,  actions,  vicissitudes,  virtues,  greatness,  fall,  tri 
umph,  and  catastrophe  of  these  grand  actors  of  the  drama 
of  humanity  ;  it  enters  into  their  destiny,  identifies  its  heart 
with  their  hearts,  is  agitated  by  the  same  feelings,  bleeds 
with  the  same  wounds,  has  the  same  zeal  for  the  public 
good,  burns  with  the  same  indignation  at  fortunate  crime, 
avenges  the  same  injustice,  the  same  ingratitude,  and  the 
same  persecutions  of  the  day,  by  similar  appeals  to  poster 
ity.  Then  also  the  country,  the  nation  ;  the  era  at  which 
these  ancestors  of  the  human  race  lived,  thought,  wrote,  or 
acted  on,  and  the  events  which  they  shared,  assume  a 
shape,  a  soul,  a  countenance,  a  name,  and  an  individuality 


INTRODUCTION. 


in  the  reader's  mind.  The  enthusiastic  and  impassioned 
sentiment  has  identified  itself  with  memory  ;  the  knowl- 
edo-e  has  passed  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  heart ;  the 
historic  type  is  stamped  burning  hot  within  us.  History 
was  dead  because  it  had  become  a  book,  but  returns  to  life 
because  it  has  again  become  a  living  man. 

There  were  two  modes  of  following  out  the  plan  we  have 
conceived.  One  was  to  write  the  lives  of  great  civilizers 
according  to  their  chronological  arrangement,  passing  from 
the  first  in  order  of  date  to  the  second,  then  to  the  third, 
and  fourth,  and  so  on,  descending  step  by  step  from  the 
most  remote  days  to  our  own. 

The  other  mode  was  to  choose,  as  it  were  by  chance — 
sometimes  in  one  century  and  sometimes  in  another— in 
India  to-day,  in  Egypt  to-morrow,  in  Athens,  Rome,  Con 
stantinople,  London,  or  Paris  —  superior  men  from  these 
different  ages  and  different  races,  to  write  their  histories 
for  the  public. 

The  former  of  these  methods  appears  incontestably  the 
most  natural  and  the  most  instructive,  and  we  should  un 
doubtedly  have  adopted  it  if  we  had  been  writing  a  course 
of  lectures  instead  of  a  book. 

A  book  requires,  as  the  first  condition  of  its  success,  that 
it  should  be  interesting.  Without  this — no  readers ;  with 
out  a  mass  of  readers,  no  propagation  of  knowledge,  no 
moral  effect  produced  upon  the  generation.  Every  one 
fears  ennui,  but  especially  he  who  has  no  time  for  it. 
Now,  to  prevent  tediousness,  and  to  excite  interest,  it  is  in 
dispensable  that  we  should  avoid  monotony.  To  this  end 
we  must  have  a  certain  degree  of  variety  and  abruptness  ; 
a  continual  excitement  of  curiosity,  which  can  only  be 
raised  by  a  frequent  change  of  style  in  the  narratives,  the 
facts,  and  the  expressions.  This  pleasure,  this  attraction, 
this  curiosity,  must  be  awakened  in  the  minds  of  readers 

A  2 


x  INTRODUCTION. 

by  frequently  shifting  the  scene  :  we  must  transport  them, 
to  prevent  their  getting  sleepy,  from  one  century  to  anoth 
er,  from  one  country  to  another,  from  a  sage  to  a  conquer 
or,  from  a  warrior  to  a  legislator,  from  a  poet  to  a  philoso 
pher,  from  a  king  to  an  artist,  from  the  founder  of  a  relig 
ion  to  the  inventor  of  a  trade.  Thus  it  was  with  Plu 
tarch,  that  great  portrait-painter  of  all  types,  the  Vandyck 
of  antiquity.  Herein  lies  the  charm,  but  also  the  imper 
fection  of  his  volumes.  He  produced  portraits,  not  pic 
tures  :  there  is  nothing  to  connect  his  figures  with  each 
other.  Every  thing  is  grand,  but  isolated.  He  teaches 
man,  but  not  history.  This  is  the  evil  we  shall  endeavor 
to  avoid.  We  intend  our  figures,  scattered  in  the  first  in 
stance,  and  presented  one  by  one,  without  any  order  of 
date,  to  the  public  view,  to  group  themselves  naturally  at 
the  end  of  the  work,  so  as  to  form,  not  only  portraits,  but 
pictures. 

By  this  plan,  the  reader  whose  time  is  interrupted  will 
be  enabled  to  learn  all  that  he  needs  to  know  of  the  most 
important  events  of  past  ages — the  great  men  and  great 
actions,  the  deep  shadows  and  great  lights,  the  great  per 
versities  and  high  moral  perfections  of  his  race.  The 
general  aspect  will  be  sufficiently  discerned  among  the 
thoughts  and  acts  of  these  principal  and  critical  individ- 
ualizations  which  will  be  passed  in  review  before  him. 
In  this  living  and  breathing  chart  of  the  human  race,  he 
will  dimly  perceive  the  work  and  plan  of  God  in  human 
ity,  as  we  faintly  trace  the  scheme  of  the  world  in  the  in 
animate  map  of  the  geographer.  He  will  not  be  discour 
aged  by  his  weariness  and  falls,  considering  the  immensi 
ty  of  his  road,  the  progress  he  has  already  made,  and  the 
infinite  reward  at  the  end.  He  will  know  that  the  race, 
of  which  he  is  one,  eternally  advances  before  him,  with 
him,  and  after  him,  toward  the  destiny  fixed  by  Providence, 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

which  it  is  in  his  power  to  accelerate  by  his  virtues,  or  to 
delay  by  his  vices.  Every  thing  good  or  great  that  has 
been  imagined  in  the  world  will  be  stored  in  his  mind. 
His  prejudices  will  depart  gradually  with  his  ignorance. 
He  will  no  longer  live  for  himself  alone,  or  for  the  narrow 
circle  of  country,  time,  profession,  space,  and  ideas,  among 
which  nature  has  placed  him  for  a  few  short  days.  He 
will  live,  of  the  life  of  ages,  a  small  portion,  doubtless,  but 
a  portion  which  comprehends  and  contains  the  whole. 
This  is  the  effect  of  history,  skillfully  personified,  on  the 
minds  of  men  :  it  changes  and  purifies  them  :  it  is  the  re 
ligion  of  memory,  as  poetry  is  the  religion  of  imagination, 
as  logic  is  the  religion  of  reasoning  ;  for  each  of  our  facul 
ties  must  have  its  religious  element,  as  all  of  them  must 
rise  to  God,  to  bring  back  man  to  him— man,  that  master 
piece,  sketched  out  by  the  Creator,  and  whom,  as  a  su 
preme  honor,  he  has  charged  with  the  duty  of  completing 
himself  by  liberty,  labor,  and  virtue. 

Now,  to  give  the  general  reader  this  exhibition  of  the 
human  race  in  action,  it  is  not  necessary,  as  it  might  be 
supposed,  to  evoke  a  multitude  of  historic  names  and  per 
sonages  from  the  catacombs  of  libraries.  No:  the  human 
race  is  vast,  but  not  infinite.  A  hundred  principal  actors, 
at  most,  are  sufficient  to  represent,  under  the  pen  of  the 
historian,  the  drama,  sometimes  varied,  but  oftener  uni 
form,  of  human  vicissitudes.  Every  thing  depends  on  a 
judicious  choice  of  characters. 

There  are  also  two  ways  of  choosing  them.  They  may 
be  selected  in  respect  of  the  greatness  or  importance  of 
their  conventional  rank  in  the  world,  the  nobility  of  their 
race,  the  brilliancy  of  their  reign,  the  immensity  of  their 
empire,  the  magnificence  of  their  title,  the  multitude  of 
their  subjects,  or  the  prowess  of  their  armies.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  may  be  chosen  in  regard  of  their  natural  abili- 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

ty,  the  extent  of  their  ideas,  the  influence  which  their  ap 
pearance  exercised  upon  human  intellect,  the  greatness  of 
the  personal  part  they  acted,  the  holiness  of  their  mission 
upon  earth,  their  labors,  their  persecutions,  and  sometimes 
their  death ;  for  such  is  often  their  only  reward  for  the 
truths  they  brought  into  the  world.  They  must  especial 
ly  be  selected  for  the  epic  or  dramatic  interest  of  their 
lives.  In  this  point  of  view,  the  more  one  of  these  great 
actors  of  the  drama  of  existence  has  been  maligned,  the 
more  unhappy  he  is,  the  more  he  is  persecuted,  the  more 
there  is  of  toil,  vicissitude,  tears,  and  blood  in  his  history, 
the  more  there  is  also  of  interest,  love,  passion,  and  devo 
tion  in  the  feeling  of  posterity  toward  him,  and  the  more 
strongly  he  impresses  himself  on  the  imagination.  From 
this  point  of  view  in  the  human  heart,  which  is  that  of 
the  masses,  Socrates  is  more  historical  than  Alexander, 
Christopher  Columbus  than  Charles  the  Fifth,  Torquato 
Tasso  than  the  Medici  or  than  Francis  the  First. 

These  are  the  characters  we  have  sought  out  for  our  bi 
ographies.  We  do  not  lose  sight  of  the  immense  ascend 
ency  given  by  rank,  royalty,  military  power,  or  hereditary 
dynastic  authority  to  the  leaders  of  nations  and  shepherds 
of  the  people  in  modern  times.  An  exalted  destiny  is  the 
foundation  of  a  high  influence.  The  same  natural  abili 
ties  which,  when  placed  by  fortune  at  the  bottom  of  the 
scale,  only  shine  for  a  narrow  circle  in  the  mediocrity  of 
common  life,  illumine  the  whole  human  race  when  Prov 
idence  places  them  on  high.  A  great  idea  dies  unborn  in 
an  obscure  man  without  power,  while  it  produces  great 
results  in  one  who  sits  upon  a  throne.  We  must  be  blind 
or  envious  to  deny  this  truth.  A  man's  social  position  is 
one  of  the  conditions  of  his  action  on  his  fellows.  Rank 
is  an  initiation  to  glory.  When  we  have  met  with  per 
sonal  valor  in  sovereigns  or  in  royal  legislators,  we  have 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

,nven  them  the  first  place  in  history  ;  but  when  we  have 
seen  in  other,  obscure  ranks  of  life,  men,  superior  in  them 
selves,  but  usually  neglected  or  placed  in  the  lowest  ranks 
by  distributors  of  fame-as,  for  instance,  prophets,  philo, 
ophers,  poets,  orators,  historians,  artists,  artisans,  martyrs 
to  a  faith  useful  in  the  world—  we  have  restored  to  thes 
naturally  great  men  the  position  which  of  right  belongs  to 
them,  among  the  masters  and  models  of  our  race.     Histo 
ry  in  our  opinion,  is  like  Michael  Angelo's  Last  Judgment, 
in  which  people  appear  before  God,  not  in  their  own  cos 
tume,  but  in  that  of  nature. 

We  repeat  it,  then,  a  small  number  of  well-selected 
characters  are  sufficient  to  bring  all  known  time  in  review 
under  the  eyes  and  imagination  of  the  living  races  of 
men.  Suppose  that  you  have  the  power  of  calling  from 
their  tombs,  and  examining  for  a  moment  in  their  own 
tongues,  the  variety  and  confusion  of  historical  characters 
whom  we  are  about  to  name  by  chance,  and  then  to  class 
each  of  them  by  their  epoch  and  rank  in  the  different 
centuries,  to  make  up  link  by  link  the  long  chain  of  dates 
and  facts  : 


MOSES. 

HOMER.  PERICLES. 

HERODOTUS.  PYTHAGORAS. 

CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  GUTENBERG. 

ALEXANDER.  VlRGIL- 

SOCRATES.  CONFUCIUS. 

PLATO.  MOHAMMED. 

CICERO.  CORTEZ. 

CHARLEMAGNE.  HANNIBAL. 

ZOROASTER.  MONTEZUMA. 

BOSSUET.  LAS  CASAS' 

ST    Louis  THE  GREAT  ANONYMOUS  author 


CROMWELL.  of  the  *»'<«*»»  °/  Jesus 

CONSTANTINE.  Chnst. 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


LEO  THE  TENTH. 

CORNEILLE. 

PHIDIAS. 

HIPPOCRATES. 

FENELON. 

GODFREY  DE  BOUILLON. 

ARISTOTLE. 

FREDERICK  THE  SECOND. 

RAPIN. 

MlRABEAU. 

MOZART. 
SEMIRAMIS. 

L'HoPITAL. 

THUCYDIDES. 

ROOSTAM,  the  hero  of  Persia. 

PETER  THE  GREAT. 

CYRUS. 

DANTE. 

SOPHOCLES. 

CAESAR. 

BACON. 

ARISTIDES. 

MARTIN  LUTHER. 

MILTON. 

WASHINGTON. 

MARCUS  AURELIUS. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

POMPEY. 

SIR  ISAAC  NEWTON. 

DAVID. 

SOLOMON. 

PHOCION. 

DUGUESCLIN. 

THEMISTOCLES. 

NAPOLEON. 

ST.  VINCENT  DE  PAUL. 

DESCARTES. 

RICHELIEU. 

RACINE. 


WATT. 

LEONIDAS*. 

ST.  AUGUSTINE. 

CHARLES  THE  FIFTH. 

MlTHRIDATESv 

MACHIAVELLI. 

XERXES. 

AURUNGZEBE. 

JEAN  JACQUES  ROUSSEAU. 

DIOCLETIAN. 

LYCURGUS. 

HENRY  THE  FOURTH  OF  FRANCE. 

MARIUS. 

SYLLA. 

ORPHEUS. 

SESOSTRIS. 

CLEOPATRA. 

SCIPIO. 

ALCIBIADES. 

TIMOUR  KHAN. 

GENGHIS  KHAN. 

THE  GREAT  MEDICI. 

FRANKLIN. 

DANTON. 

ATTILA. 

CHARLOTTE  CORDAY. 

GALILEO. 

CAMOENS. 

WILLIAM  THE  CONQUEROR. 

MARY  STUART. 

BENVENUTO  CELLINI. 

RAFEAELLE,  the  painter. 

MADAME  ROLAND. 

MADAME  DE  STAEL. 

CATHARINE  II.  of  Russia. 

SAPPHO. 

EPICTETUS. 

VlTTORIA   COLONNA. 

WILLIAM  TELL. 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

BYRON,  the  poet.  Louis  THE  SIXTEENTH. 

JACQUARD,  the  mechanist.  NELSON. 

GOJ.THE  HELOISE,  the  wife  of  Abelard. 

BUFFON,  the  naturalist.  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY,  the  potter. 

CUVIER.  JoAN  OF  ARC" 

CERVANTES.  TACITUS. 

MOLIERE.  &C" 

GUSTAVUS  ADOLPHUS.  &c. 

CHARLES  THE  FIRST,  of  England.   &c. 

Here  are  altogether  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty 
names,  personifying  human  intellect  and  human  life.  Is 
it  not  apparent  that,  after  a  communion  of  some  years 
with  this  council  of  past  ages,  the  superficial  reader  will 
have  an  approximate  idea  of  universal  history,  more  ex 
tensive  and  more  vivid  than  after  running  through  the 
cold  and  lifeless  pages  of  an  abridgment? 

History,  thus  examined,  is  no  longer  a  study,  but  a  con 
versation;  not  a  science,  but  a  continuous  drama;  not 
depending  upon  mere  memory,  but  bound  up  with  our  in 
most  feelings.  It  is  the  most  certain  mode  of  conveying 
knowledge— instruction  by  means  of  emotion. 

This  method  of  instruction  by  serious  reading  it  is  now 
time  to  take  up,  in  the  silence  and  quiet  between  the 
great  catastrophes  of  the  past  and  the  unknown  birth  of 
the  future.  The  human  mind  is  so  much  the  more  atten 
tive  as  it  is  more  undecided  and  in  suspense  among  its 
ideas.  We  shall  not  concern  ourselves  with  the  politics 
of  the  day,  but  with  that  everlasting  policy  which  grows 
up  and  increases  under  all  forms  of  government,  because 
it  is  independent  of  the  transitory  forms  of  institutions; 
because  it  addresses  itself  to -the  intellect  and  not  to  ti 
passions  ;  and  because  its  object  is  morality,  and  not  pop 
ular  opinion. 

The  new  phases  of  the  modern  world,  by  destroying 


xvi  INTRODUCTION, 

slavery,  and  calling  up  the  masses  to  a  larger  share  in 
their  own  destinies,  make  morality  and  instruction  two 
indispensable  conditions  of  liberty.  These  two  fortunate 
requirements  of  our  time  demand  that  the  philosophers 
and  writers  who  hold  in  their  hands  the  mirror  of  truth, 
should  turn  down  the  bright  side,  which  they  formerly 
held  upward.  Light  has  been  ascending  long  enough  : 
it  is  now  time  to  turn  it  downward.  Truth  has  often 
been  incarnate  in  a  man :  it  is  now  time  it  should  walk 
among  the  crowd.  We  know  how  difficult  this  is.  The 
people  and  the  authors  have  not  hitherto  spoken  the  same 
language  :  it  is  for  the  authors  to  change,  and  stoop  to 
place  the  words  of  truth  within  reach  of  the  masses.  To 
stoop  thus  is  not  to  degrade  genius,  but  to  make  it  manly. 
WHO  MAKES  IT  POPULAR  MAKES  IT  DIVINE.  We  feel  our 
own  insufficiency,  but  shall  endeavor  to  raise  the  style 
of  our  narratives  to  the  perfection  of  art — SIMPLICITY. 
Simplicity,  that  universal  language,  which  renews  be 
tween  the  rich  and  the  poor,  between  the  learned  and  the 
ignorant,  the  wise  man  and  the  child,  that  symbolic  mir 
acle  of  the  first  messengers  of  the  Gospel,  who  spoke  but 
one  tongue,  and  were  understood  by  the  disciples  of  all 
nations.  Take  and  read,  we  shall  say,  like  the  clockma- 
ker's  son,  to  the  families  of  workmen  who  have  the  least 
knowledge  of  letters.  Here  we  have  history,  come  down 
from  the  dusty  shelves  of  libraries,  stripped  of  its  purple 
and  its  pomp,  and  speaking  the  common  language,  in  its 
calm  and  clear  narratives,  with  your  wives  and  children. 
We  shall  endeavor  to  be  her  interpreter.  We  have  for 
merly  sung  the  poet's  language  for  the  happy  and  idle  of 
earth.  We  have  since  spoken  the  language  of  orators  in 
the  tribune,  and  of  statesmen  among  the  storms  of  the 
republic.  More  humble  to-day,  and  perhaps  more  useful, 
we  blush  not  to  learn  the  phraseology  which  reaches  the 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

intellect  through  the  heart,  to  be  simple  with  the  simple, 
and  child-like  with  children. 

But  of  what  use,  it  may  be  asked,  is  elementary  history 
to  the  men  of  labor,  and  in  the  occupations  of  the  poor  ? 
"What  have  they  in  common  with  heroes,  kings,  philoso 
phers,  politicians  ?  What  need  is  there  of  teaching  them 
the  great  games  of  fortune,  the  catastrophes  of  empires, 
the  conduct  of  human  affairs,  in  order  to  forge  a  bar,  to 
thread  the  shuttle,  to  prune  the  vine,  or  steer  the  boat  ? 

Doubtless  the  mass  does  not  want  to  know  history  in 
order  to  carry  on  any  one  of  these  trades  :  it  does  not  re 
quire  it  to  live,  but  it  requires  it  to  think.  And,  inasmuch 
as  thought  makes  the  man,  if  you  desire  that  your  masses 
should  consist  of  men,  and  not  of  human  machines,  give 
them  the  elements  of  reflection.  History  is  perhaps  the 
most  healthy  and  most  improving  of  these  elements.  It 
develops  in  the  people  that  in  which  it  is  most  deficient — 
conscience.  It  exhibits  Providence  in  retribution,  and  in 
the  unfailing  reward  of  good  and  evil.  If  it  is  given  in  a 
right  and  religious  spirit,  a  course  of  history  is  a  lesson  of 
justice  and  a  lecture  on  conscience  to  all  nations. 

It  is  not  only  a  lesson  of  justice  and  a  popular  course  of 
lectures  on  political  morality,  but  also  of  love  for  the  beau 
tiful.  This  love  of  moral  beauty  is  the  instinct  the  most 
nearly  approaching  to  virtue  that  God  has  bestowed  on 
man.  It  is  the  involuntary  and  passionate  aspiration  of 
the  soul  to  the  acme  of  perfection  in  every  thing,  the  sur- 
sum  corda  of  the  human  race,  making  the  heart  rise  from 
marvel  to  marvel,  even  unto  God,  the  beginning  and  end 
of  all  beauty.  This  faculty,  like  all  others,  whether  in  in 
dividuals  or  in  masses,  can  only  be  strengthened  by  exer 
cise.  What  more  magnificent  field  for  the  exercise  of  this 
enthusiasm  than  history  ?  It  has  been  remarked  with  rea 
son,  that  the  medium  in  which  we  live,  physically  no  less 


INTRODUCTION. 

than  morally,  never  fails  within  a  certain  period  to  modify 
our  constitutions  and  our  minds.  If,  then,  you  allow  a  peo 
ple  to  live  in  habitual  and  exclusive  communion  with  the 
superficial  philosophy,  the  low  instincts,  the  false  heroes, 
and  the  impure  literature  with  which  it  is  flooded  in  the 
work-shop  and  the  cottage,  what  can  you  expect  from 
your  rising  youth  ?  Generation  will  succeed  generation  in 
vice,  with  stupidity  stamped  on  the  forehead,  unbelief  in 
the  heart,  a  sneer  on  the  lip,  prurient  stories  in  the  imagin 
ation,  impure  couplets  on  the  tongue  ;  taking  success  for 
justice,  cupidity  for  their  God,  and  sedition  for  liberty— 
a  curse  to  themselves,  the  shame  of  their  country  and  their 
time! 

But  if  you  raise  them  by  well-chosen  and  well-adapted 
history  to  the  contemplation  of  the  great  operations  of  Prov 
idence  on  the  human  race,  to  understand  the  great  destiny 
of  man  in  his  social  state  on  the  earth,  to  comprehend  the 
great  religious  or  civil  laws  which  govern  and  improve  the 
world  ;  and  if  you  bring  them  into  habitual  contact,  by 
means  of  your  writings,  with  those  great  and  virtuous  men, 
those  master  spirits,  heroes,  martyrs,  sages,  philosophers, 
poets,  and  artists,  who,  in  their  lives  or  in  their  works,  have 
thrown  their  blood,  their  toil,  their  soul,  their  love,  their  pa 
triotism,  their  inspirations,  or  their  thoughts,  into  that  com 
mon  fund  of  greatness,  disinterestedness,  devotion  to  their 
fellows,  genius,  piety,  and  generosity,  which  makes  the  glo 
ry  and  the  boast  of  the  species — if  you  thus  fill  the  peo 
ple's  minds  with  the  sacred  sentiment  of  enthusiasm  for 
the  names,  thoughts,  acts,  efforts,  reverses,  and  even  deaths 
of  these  types  of  humanity,  doubt  not  that  you  will  at  the 
same  time  inspire  your  pupils  with  the  desire  to  resemble 
what  they  admire ;  and  this  enthusiasm,  which  seems  at 
first  a  mere  outburst  of  the  imagination,  will  find  its  way 
to  the  heart,  and  soon  become  a  source  of  national  moral- 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 

ity.  Man  is  imitative,  because  he  is  capable  of  improve 
ment.  What  he  wants  most  is  not  lessons,  but  models. 
Search  for  these  in  hostory,  and  hold  them  up  unceasingly 
before  the  eyes  of  the  little  children.  These  children  will 
become  a  nation,  and  the  nation  will  honor  and  surpass 
you.  It  will  hand  your  name  to  posterity,  and  will  be 
your  tribute  of  civilization  to  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  the 

world. 

It  is  not  sufficiently  well  Mown  how  easily  a  crowd, 
whose  outbursts  include  so  many  dangers  and  so  many 
crimes,  is  impressed  by  the  beautiful,  or  how  much  mag 
nanimity  and  virtue   is   contained  in  its   enthusiasm.     I 
may  be  permitted  to  describe  an  instance  which  I  myself 
witnessed,  and  which  is  well  worthy  of  a  place  in  history. 
At  the  moment  that  I  was  proclaiming,  on  the  very  spot 
where  stood  the  scaffold  of  the  old  revolution,  the  abolition 
of  capital  punishment,  and  while  I  was  addressing  the  tur 
bulent  and  still  undecided  populace  to  make  them  acqui 
esce  in  this  decree,  a  bar  to  vengeance  and  a  mutual  am 
nesty  of  factions,  my  words  were  interrupted  by  a  low  mur 
mur  on  my  right,  a  few  paces  from  me.     It  was  a  corpse 
they  were  bringing  to  share  in  the  public  funeral  of  the 
morrow.     The  corpse  was  that  of  a  lad  of  eighteen,  the 
son  of  a  poor  widow,  accidentally  struck  three  days  pre 
viously  by  a  chance  ball.     He  was  half  covered  by  his 
cloak,  which  had  been  thrown  over  his  legs.     A  copper 
crucifix  lay  upon  his  shirt,  blood-stained  near  the  wound, 
which  was  in  the  chest ;  his  fine  head  rested  on  the  edge 
of  the  stretcher  upon  some  green  leaves  of  box  or  laurel. 
A  woman,  weeping,  followed  the  corpse  in  the  path  which 
its  bearers  slowly  and  with  difficulty  forced  through  the 
crowd.     When  they  reached  the  railing,  by  the  steps,  the 
crush  prevented  them  from  carrying  out  their  pious  task. 
They  stopped  close  under  me .     A  man  of  feeling,  the  Chief 


xx  INTRODUCTION. 

Secretary  of  the  city  of  Paris,  who  happened  to  be  stand 
ing  behind  me,  took  pity  on  the  poor  woman,  who  was 
thus  obliged  to  stand  weeping,  in  the  midst  of  a  boisterous 
crowd,  by  the  bleeding  remains  of  her  child.  He  went 
down  among  them,  took  the  woman  by  the  hand,  brought 
her  away,  and  placed  her,  in  safety  from  the  rush  of  the 
crowd,  between  himself  and  me. 

I  went  on  haranguing  the  multitude,  who  sometimes 
cheered  me,  and  then  relapsed  into  an  ominous  silence. 
Some  groups  on  my  right  hand  seemed  undecided  between 
the  wish  to  be  generous  and  the  fear  of  being  rash.  My 
kind  neighbor  took  advantage  of  one  of  these  pauses  to 
address  a  few  words  of  consolation  and  support  to  the 
weeping  woman.  "  You  understand,"  he  said, "  the  speak 
er  is  going  to  read  to  the  people,  and  is  persuading  them 
to  ratify,  one  of  the  holiest  decrees  that  could  ever  induce 
God  to  pardon  the  blood  shed  in  civil  contest.  The  decree 
forever  abolishes  the  punishment  of  death,  which,  in  times 
of  revolution,  men  used  to  inflict  upon  one  another.  He 
is  advocating  tolerance  of  opinion,  respect  for  the  conquer 
ed,  and  the  inviolability  of  human  life."  "Yes,  sir,  I  un 
derstand,"  said  the  mother,  standing  on  tiptoe  to  look  upon 
her  son's  face,  and  raising  her  voice,  as  if  she  intended  to 
make  her  words  heard  by  the  dead;  then  lifting  both 
hands  to  heaven,  with  a  gesture  of  sudden  emotion,  "  Ah !" 
she  cried,  "  if  my  poor  child  could  only  have  lived  long 
enough  to  have  heard  of  this  decree,  he  would  have  been 
happy  to  die  !  ...  and  yet  he  loved  me  well !"  she  added, 
bursting  again  into  tears. 

This  exclamation  of  the  generous  mother,  and  the  testi 
mony  she  thus  bore  over  the  corpse  of  her  dead  son  to  his 
opinions  while  living,  drew  from  those  who  stood  nearest 
a  cry  of  admiration,  which  spread  rapidly  from  mouth  to 
mouth  through  the  crowd  ;  the  enthusiasm  for  the  beauti- 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

ful  had  seized  upon  them,  as  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity 
had  taken  possession  of  the  mother.  I  resumed  my  har 
angue  :  the  multitude  was  affected,  and  the  decree  was 
carried. 

Such  incidents  are  not  mere  tales,  but  persuasive  argu 
ments.  They  improve  something  more  than  the  mind — 
they  tell  upon  the  heart.  They  display  moral  beauty,  and 
by  displaying  it  they  bring  it  out  and  cause  it  to  be  imi 
tated.  If  that  woman's  son  had  not  read  in  his  childhood 
stories  which  teach  beauty  and  greatness  of  mind,  his 
mother  would  never  have  had  the  right  or  the  idea  of  thus 
answering  for  him.  If  the  mother  had  never  read  the 
Gospel,  she  would  have  cried  for  vengeance  instead  of 
asking  for  generosity  in  the  name  of  her  dead  son.  If  the 
people  had  no  feeling  for  grief,  they  would  not  have  been 
moved  by  the  resignation  and  piety  of  the  childless 
widow. 

Such  is  history !  the  son  dies,  the  mother  forgives,  the 
people  is  improved,  the  historian  describes  the  scene,  and 
civilization,  which  never  goes  back,  is  enriched  with  an 
emotion,  a  tear,  and  a  virtue  the  more. 

Now  for  a  word  on  the  supposed  abasement  of  literature, 
which,  according  to  some  proud  spirits,  is  vilified  and  de 
graded  by  becoming  acceptable  to  the  more  numerous  and 
less  instructed  classes.  Here  follows,  on  this  subject,  an 
unpublished  letter  which  I  addressed  some  years  ago  to  a 
friend  who  expressed  this  doubt  to  me.  The  letter  comes 
very  appropriately  in  this  place. 

"  I  had  said  to  myself  in  early  youth,  while  visiting 
Switzerland,  Germany,  and  Scotland,  receiving  hospitality 
in  the  poorest  mountain  cottages  ;  finding  my  hosts  almost 
always  peasant-families  of  literary  or  artistic  taste;  ob 
serving  in  the  sitting-room  by  the  fireside  a  Bible,  and  a 
little  library  of  the  national  poets,  arranged  on  a  fir-plank 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

by  the  side  of  the  bright  row  of  copper  saucepans,  a  hunt 
ing  horn,  a  flute,  and  perhaps  a  piano  beside  the  walnut 
cupboard  and  the  bread-safe  ;  hearing,  on  Sunday,  the  girls 
or  young  men  of  the  house  reading  aloud  the  fine,  popular 
ballads  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  or  Burns,  or  picking  out  on 
their  piano-forte  the  sweet  melodies  of  Mozart ;  I  had  said 
to  myself,  *  Why  is  it  not  so  in  our  own  country  1  Why 
have  the  French  workman  and  peasant,  in  their  garret  or 
hovel,  only  vile  colored  prints,  hung  to  a  nail  in  the  smoky 
wall — hymns,  in  which  the  name  of  God  is  as  much  blas 
phemed  as  his  image  is  profaned  in  the  features  of  the  old 
man  with  the  rays  round  his  face  on  the  dim  panes  of  a 
Flemish  tap-room — or  an  elegy  on  some  famous  thief  or 
assassin,  imprinting  no  other  ideal  or  example  of  poetry  or 
glory  on  the  eyes  and  imaginations  of  our  villages  than  the 
Wandering  Jew  or  the  profligate  De  Mandrill  ?'* 

"  Is  it  want  of  taste  in  the  people  ?  But  the  Germans 
have  not  been  gifted  by  nature  with  more  delicacy  of 
feeling  than  we  are,  yet  they  prefer  their  great  poets  to 
their  great  thieves — the  Venetian  gondolier  yet  chants  the 
stanzas  of  Ariosto — the  fisherman  of  Naples  sings  the 
strophes  of  the  Jerusalem  Delivered — the  Rhapsodists  of 
Ionia  and  of  the  Greek  Archipelago  gained  their  living  by 
roaming  from  port  to  port  of  the  islands,  and  over  moun 
tain  and  valley  of  the  continent,  singing  the  songs  of 
Homer — the  Hebrews  in  their  captivity  sat  down,  says  the 
Psalmist,  by  the  waters  of  Babylon,  weeping  as  they  re 
membered  the  glorious  hymns  of  their  kings  and  prophets 
sounding  to  the  harp  of  David — the  Hindoo  still  learns  by 
heart  in  his  childhood  passages  from  the  Vedas,  those  great 
monumental  poems  of  their  origin,  their  tradition,  and 
their  history — the  three  hundred  million  inhabitants  of  the 

*  A  robber  famous  in  French  story.  Most  of  his  exploits  are  apoc 
ryphal.—  TR. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

Celestial  Empire  can  repeat  the  philosbphical  maxims  of 
their  prophet  and  sage  Confucius — the  Arabs  still  sing  in 
the  deserts  of  Mesopotamia  the  love  ballads  and  warlike 
songs  of  Antar,  the  Homer  of  the  Caravan — the  Persian, 
beneath  his  wretched  tent,  seasons  the  wine  of  Shiraz  with 
the  wise  and  voluptuous  verses  of  Saadi,  the  Horace  of  the 
East — the  Mohammedan  pilgrim,  who  visits  the  tomb  of 
the  Prophet  at  Mecca,  reads,  hanging  on  the  walls  of  the 
sepulchre,  the  most  beautiful  poetry  with  which  the  year 
or  the  century  has  inspired  their  writers,  concerning  chaste 
love,  the  charms  of  perfect  beauty,  the  war-horse,  the 
arms,  or  the  exploits  of  the  warrior,  religious  charity,  in 
violable  hospitality,  the  wisdom  of  white  beards,  the  pre 
cepts  of  morality,  or  the  seventy  thousand  virtues  of  the 
name  of  God — the  Servian  or  Dalmatian  peasant  has  his 
popular  songs — the  Scot  has  his  Ossian — even  the  Span 
iard  has  his  laments  in  rhyme,  his  chivalrous  romances, 
and  his  guitar.  The  Frenchman  alone  has  nothing  but 
his  wine-glass  at  the  pot-house  and  his  drinking  song, 
more  coarse  and  sour  even  than  his  wine,  to  amuse  his 
long  wirfter  evenings,  for  his  wife  to  dream  of  by  the  fire 
side,  to  guide  the  first  efforts  of  his  sons  to  speak,  and  to 
impress  on  the  tender  imaginations  of  his  daughters  the 
beautiful  images  of  nature,  the  holy  aspirations  of  the  soul, 
the  heroism  of  the  heart,  gentleness  of  manners,  and  the 
greatness  of  God. 

"  Is  it  misery  ?  But  the  people  I  have  just  named  are 
no  richer  than  we  are  :  in  the  shanty  of  the  Highlander, 
the  tent  of  the  Arab,  the  hovel  of  the  Serb,  there  is  no 
more  furniture  or  leisure  than  in  the  cottage  of  our  own 
peasants — many  times  less  than  in  the  apartment  of  the 
artisan  in  our  manufacturing  towns.  Besides,  if  they  have 
money  enough  to  buy  from  the  peddler  who  comes  round 
in  autumn  the  rough  image,  the  fashionable  song,  or  the 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

dirge  of  the  day,  they  would  have  enough  to  buy  as  eco 
nomical,  and  more  healthy,  food  for  their  intellect :  a  chap 
ter  of  the  Gospel  or  a  page  of  Racine  weighs  no  heavier 
on  a  sheet  of  paper  than  an  obscene  story  or  a  drinking 
song ;  an  ennobling  idea  costs  no  more  than  a  scandalous 
tale.  It  is  not  their  indigence.  Is  it  ignorance  ?  It  might 
have  been,  once,  when  the  people  could  not  read  ;  but  as, 
within  the  last  fifteen  years,  the  institution  of  primary  in 
struction  in  our  hamlets  has  given  the  children  of  the  soil 
a  sense  the  more,  the  intellectual  and  moral  sense — since 
the  people  can  read,  why  do  they  not  read,  or  why  still 
only  read  things  unworthy  of  being  perused?  "Why  do 
they  only  look  upon  images  calculated  to  defile  or  debase 
the  eyes?  "Why  are  the  literature,  sculpture,  painting, 
engraving,  and  music  of  the  French  people  only  the  scan 
dal,  the  degradation,  and  the  shame  of  art  ? 

"  It  is  because  literature,  sculpture,  painting,  engraving, 
and  music  have  been  hitherto  despised  in  France.  It  is 
because  art  has  disdained  to  render  itself  popular,  and  be 
cause  the  people  have  been,  until  our  time,  incompetent  to 
rise  to  the  level  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  pleasures  of 
the  mind. 

"  And  why,  again,  is  this  ?  It  is  because,  of  all  coun 
tries  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  France  is,  perhaps,  the  one 
in  which  the  masses  were  least  thought  of  by  those  who 
cultivated  letters  or  the  fine  or  manual  arts.  We  thought, 
we  drew,  we  made  verses,  we  wrote  operas,  for  the  courts. 
We  let  profanity  and  vice  paint,  write,  engrave,  and  sing, 
or  rather  howl,  for  the  people.  Increasing  liberty  has 
changed  all  this,  and  will  change  it  more  and  more  every 
day.  The  genius  which  used  to  rise  to  please  the  elegant 
leaders  of  the  social  world,  who  then  monopolized  instruc 
tion,  will  now  descend  to  breathe  upon  the  masses,  and  im 
pregnate  them  by  degrees  with  the  feeling  of  the  beautiful, 


INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

the  great,  and  the  good  in  art.  We  shall  raise  the  level 
of  their  souls  by  raising  the  standard  of  their  minds — we 
shall  produce  the  unity  of  intellect.  This  unity  is  evident 
ly  the  work  cut  out  for  this  century,  the  work  of  God.  Hap 
py  are  they  who  shall  understand  it,  and  who  shall  be  for 
tunate  enough  to  assist  in  it !" 

In  my  small  way,  I  have  tried  it  in  two  different  modes. 
I  have  founded  a  popular  journalism,  which,  until  then,  no 
one  had  ventured  upon  ;  a  journalism,  grave,  philosophic, 
and  political,  in  the  highest  acceptation  of  the  term,  en 
deavoring  to  inspire  the  country  by  monthly  "Counsel" 
with  true  perceptions  of  its  moral  dignity  and  of  its  social 
duties.  This  journalism  flattered  neither  its  ignorance,  its 
weakness,  nor  its  passions  ;  it  did  not  excite  it  by  chimer 
ical  hopes ;  it  did  not  throw  oil  on  the  flame  of  its  hatred 
or  of  its  anger ;  it  did  not  amuse  its  idle  malignity  with 
invectives  against  the  government,  by  jibes  at  its  rulers,  by 
jests  on  the  names  of  those  who  do  honor  to  the  age.  It 
endeavored  to  infuse  into  them  the  true  greatness  of  a  na 
tion,  free  adoration  of  the  Lord  of  lords,  reverence  for  the 
institutions  which  connect  earth  with  heaven,  time  with 
eternity,  misery  with  hope  ;  the  love  of  gpeace,  more  diffi 
cult  and  more  glorious  than  war  among  nations  ;  tolerance 
of  opinion,  practical  fraternity  of  rank,  union  among  hearts 
— in  short,  the  soul  of  true  society. 

Every  body  told  me  that  I  was  attempting  an  impossi 
ble  task  ;  that  the  people  would  let  fall  and  trample  under 
foot  a  journalism  so  little  adapted  to  its  previous  nature, 
and  throw  itself  exclusively  upon  the  prurient  and  filthy 
leaves  in  which  it  is  fed  with  phantasms,  discord,  envy,  bit 
terness,  calumny,  and  anonymous  hate  (as  the  Orientals 
scatter  opium  in  the  air  to  empoison  the  atmosphere),  vom 
ited  forth  among  us  in  order  that  the  masses  may  be  with 
ered,  enervated,  and  consumed  by  slow  fire  as  they  breathe 
VOL.  I.— B 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

it.     Well !  the  people  have  disappointed  those  who  held 
so  low  an  opinion  of  their  instincts  as  to  think  them  inca 
pable  of  choosing  a  mild  but  healthy  nourishment,  prefer 
ably  to  the  strong-tasted,  but  corrupt  food  hitherto  adminis 
tered.     In  a  few  months,  "  The  severe  and  conscientious 
Counselor  of  the  People"*  has  become  the  manual  of  a 
hundred  thousand  peasants,  artisans,  and  workmen.     If 
men  of  more  talent  and  more  leisure  than  myself  had  asso 
ciated  themselves  with  my  isolated  efforts,  and  lent  me  their 
time,  their  genius,  and  their  soul,  to  multiply  these  Coun 
sels,  and  to  send  forth   every  morning,  instead  of  every 
month,  these  conversations  with  the  public,  designed  to 
keep  it  acquainted  with  current  events,  with  useful  knowl 
edge,  science,  books,  men,  and  ideas,  then  the  serious  house 
hold  newspaper-press  would  have  had  its  birth,  civilization 
would  have  become  popular,  social  order  would  have  found 
a  tongue ;  and  when  once  it  had  done  so,  nothing  could 
shake  it.     Darkness  and  chaos  were  one,  before  the  bud 
ding  forth  of  the  material  world.     Darkness  and  chaos 
cleave  together  in  the  development  of  the  moral  world. 
Clear  up,  therefore,  the  intelligence  of  the  masses,  and  you 
will  have  order^broad  daylight,  and  progress  in  laws  and 
manners. 

What  may  thus  be  done  by  the  newspaper  press  toward 
initiating  the  people  in  literature,  which  is  only  a  means 
of  civilization,  history  must  do  for  the  intelligence  and  sen 
timent  of  the  masses.  History  is  the  thought  of  ages  con 
densed  into  a  few  leaves — coins  of  a  pure  metal,  represent 
ing  great  value  with  but  little  weight.  Libraries  for  the 
people  are  wanted.  These  libraries  must  be  in  the  peo 
ple's  hands — in  the  hands  of  the  women,  the  girls,  and  the 
children,  by  each  fireside.  In  their  evening  hours,  in  rain, 
*  The  title  of  a  serial  of  M.  de  Lamartine,  which  was  discontinued 
shortly  before  the  appearance  of  the  present  work. — T» 


INTRODUCTION.  xxvji 

in  winter,  when  out  of  work,  and  on  Sunday,  they  must  find 
at  home  that  centre  of  affection  and  virtue,  the  beneficial, 
high-toned,  poetical,  historical,  political,  philosophical,  re 
ligious,  interesting,  exciting,  and  pleasing  communion  with 
the  minds  which,  in  all  ages,  have  best  understood,  felt, 
written,  or  sung  the  human  heart  and  the  human  intellect  : 
these  books  must  be  the  hosts,  the  visitors,  the  guests,  and 
friends  of  the  workman's  home.     They  must  take  up  little 
room  ;  they  must  cost  little  ;  they  must  adapt  themselves  to 
the  manners,  the  fortune,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  family 
in  which  they  are  admitted.     They  must  even  enter  it  gra 
tuitously,  like  the  air,  the  sunlight,  or  the  sweet  perfume 
of  the  garden.     Some  good  men  will  meet,  and  say,  "  Let 
us  publish,  at  our  common  expense,  a  select,  abridged,  and 
corrected  edition,  with  notes,  in  one  small  volume,  on  cheap 
paper,  and  with  cheap  type,  of  Homer,  Tasso,  Plato,  Tacitus, 
Cicero,  St.  Augustin,  Bossuet,  Fe'nelon,  Racine,  Corneille, 
Rousseau,  Buffon,  Pascal,  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  Chateau 
briand — of  this,  that,  and  the  other,  who  have  done  honor 
to  the  human  race,  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages,  philos 
ophers,  poets,  historians,  orators,  politicians,  moralists,  nov 
el-writers  ;  let  us  adapt  it  to  the  usual  share  of  leisure  and 
average  intelligence  of  the  people  ;  let  us  cut  down  these 
statues  of  the  glory  of  the  human  race  into  busts,  which  can 
enter  the  door  of  the  cottage  and  the  garret,  and  be  placed 
on  the  housewife's  shelf,  between  the  bed  and  the  chimney- 
piece,  without  cumbering  the  room  :  they  will  be  the  fur 
niture  of  the  mind,  not  interfering  with  the  furniture  of  the 
house.     The  family  will  use  them  at  leisure,  in  its  sadness, 
in  its  joy,  in  its  household  devotion.     Every  one,  be  he  rich 
or  poor,  in  passing  through  life,  will  know  the  names  of  the 
great  men  who  have  honored,  dignified,  enlightened,  served, 
or  delighted  humanity,  and  will  be  acquainted  with  the  his 
tory  of  the  principal  races  who  have  possessed  the  earth, 


INTRODUCTION. 

and  with  a  summary  of  the  works  of  the  philosophers,  the 
poets,  the  moralists,  and  the  divines  who  have  left  their 
written  thoughts  as  a  possession  and  inheritance  to  their 
fellow-men. 

By  what  means  were  formed  the  language,  the  eye,  and 
the  taste  of  that  wonderful  Athenian  public,  which  sat  in 
judgment  on  the  Odes  of  Pindar,  the  tragedies  of  Sopho 
cles,  the  wit  of  Aristophanes,  the  high  philosophy  of  Plato, 
the  pictures  of  Zeuxis,  the  statues  of  Phidias  1  By  the  habit 
it  had  contracted  of  living  in  communion  of  mind  and  feel 
ing  with  those  great  men,  by  the  diffusion  of  that  feeling 
of  the  great,  the  beautiful,  and  the  sublime,  of  which  the 
types,  models,  examples,  and  master-pieces  were  constant 
ly  before  their  eyes.  The  great  orators  who  addressed  the 
people  in  the  political  assemblies — the  great  poets  of  the 
Olympic  games,  or  of  the  theatre,  which  was  then  a  pub 
lic  institution  instead  of  a  private  speculation — the  gardens 
of  Academus,  where  the  poor  man  might  be  present,  if  he 
chose,  at  the  dialogues  of  Socrates,  the  lessons  of  Plato — 
the  works  of  the  painters,  which  he  saw  hung  up  in  the 
temples  —  the  statues  of  the  sculptors,  exhibited  in  the 
Parthenon,  or  unceasingly  open  to  his  admiration,  were  so 
many  popular  editions  of  all  the  master-pieces  of  mind,  of 
wisdom,  or  of  artistic  skill.  Thanks  to  these  gratuitous 
editions,  this  people  became  not  a  nation  of  kings  like  the 
Romans,  but  a  nation  of  philosophers,  poets,  sages,  and 
artists.  Never  had  human  intellect  risen  so  high;  and 
when  we  wish  to  estimate  its  standard  at  the  present  day, 
it  is  only  by  the  wrecks  of  it  that  remain  that  it  can  be 
measured. 

It  is  to  this  standard  of  intellectual  and  artistic  civiliza 
tion,  still  further  perfected  by  the  abolition  of  slavery,  by 
the  moral  equality  of  the  sexes,  by  the  diffusion  of  relig 
ious  feeling,  that  we  are  called  upon  to  raise  the  soul,  the 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

manners,  the  taste,  the  language,  and  the  arts  of  our  ru 
ral  or  manufacturing  populations.  Such  is  true  equality, 
the  easiest  and  the  most  holy  of  all — equality  in  civiliza 
tion. 

I  have  had  successes  and  reverses  in  my  life  as  an  au 
thor.     At  the  beginning  of  my  career,  the  eminent  men  of 
my  time  ;  the  women,  in  whom  dwells  the  living  present 
iment  of  posterity,  because  they  carry  within  them  an  in 
nate  power  of  judging  works  of  art,  in  the  infallible  sensi 
bility  given  to  them  by  nature ;  the  young  men,  in  whom 
age  and  scholastic  sophisms  have  not  yet  obliterated  feel 
ing  ;  the  rich  and  the  happy  of  this  world,  who  have  leis 
ure,  and  the  refinement  of  taste,  cultivated  at  ease ;  the 
princes,  who  love  to  associate  their  names  with  all  the 
celebrities  of  their  time  ;  the  courts,  which  demand  of  lit 
erature  that  it  shall  send  down  a  flattering  notice  of  them 
to  posterity — received  my  first  verses  with  gracious  favor 
and  a  smile  of  good-will.     The  great  historical,  literary, 
and  consular  names  of  my  country,  and  the  contemporaries 
of  my  youth,  such  as  Rohan,  Montmorency,  Talleyrand, 
Laine,  De  Serres,  Royer  Collard ;  princes  and  princesses, 
and  kings,  who,  like  Louis  the  Eighteenth,  Alexander,  and 
the  learned  sovereigns  of  the  North,  or  of  Tuscany,  thought 
it  an  honor  to  be  the  patrons  and  sometimes  the  rivals  of 
writers  and  poets,  did  not  disdain  to  admit  me  to  their  con 
versation,  and  sometimes  even  to  their  friendship.     I  have 
retained  a  respectful  remembrance  of  it :  I  owe  them  no 
venal  favor,  such  as  would  degrade  literature  from  its  in 
dependence,  the  true  nobility  of  the  spirit ;  but  I  have  to 
thank  them  for  having  invited  and  raised  me  »  spiritual 
communion  with  those  of  high  station  and  of  high  intelli 
gence  in  my  day,  and  who,  as  Cicero  remarks,  "  make  both 
the  patricians  and  plebeians  of  literature  rise  without  pride, 
and  condescend  without  degradation,  so  as  to  bring  to  a 


xxx  INTRODUCTION. 

common  level  of  conversation  those  whom  nature  has  cre 
ated  similar  in  their  tastes,  unequal  only  in  position." 

And  now,  at  the  close  of  my  literary  career,  to  which  I 
myself  put  an  end  before  the  age  of  exhaustion — like  Ros 
sini,  who  had  the  wisdom  to  retire  into  silence  at  Bologna 
before  he  had  lost  one  note  of  his  voice — my  ambition  would 
be  to  receive,  in  the  obscure  but  honorable  ranks  of  the 
people,  that  literary  and  poetical  naturalization  which  I 
formerly  received  above,  in  the  higher  and  more  elegant 
ranks  of  literary  society.  Yes !  what  is  absurdly  called 
literary  glory,  and  which  is  at  bottom  only  the  modest  do 
mestic  popularity  of  a  name,  among  other  more  brilliant 
contemporary  names,  for  me,  would  be  this  : 

To  leave  a  few  pages  of  my  feelings  or  of  my  thoughts 
in  a  little  volume  on  the  garret  or  cottage  table  of  the 
workmen  in  town  or  country. 

To  be  spelled  over  at  evening  by  the  light  of  the  house 
hold  lamp,  in  the  hands  of  the  housewife,  her  daughters, 
and  her  sons,  as  a  little  treasure  of  the  heart. 

To  be  carried  about  as  a  friend,  and  recited  by  frag 
ments  on  Sundays,  in  the  walks  that  the  family  and  the 
neighbors  take  among  their  corn  or  their  blooming  grapes. 

To  accompany  the  honest,  wealthy,  and  laborious  work 
man,  with  the  companion  of  his  toil,  when  they  go  on  holi 
days,  in  the  bright  summer-time,  far  away  from  the  work 
shop  and  the  town,  to  enjoy  the  sweet,  cool,  and  balmy 
breezes  which  renew  feeling  in  their  souls,  as  they  renew 
the  breath  of  life  in  their  bosoms. 

To  pitch  about  with  the  earthen  crocks  and  cooking 
utensils  oUthe  fisherman,  in  the  boat  in  which  the  sailor- 
family  of  our  coasts  goes  to  cruise  on  the  Sea  of  Brittany 
or  in  the  bays  of  the  Mediterranean. 

To  be  packed  with  the  loaf  of  black  bread  and  salt  olives 
in  the  canvas  bag  in  which  the  shepherd  of  the  High  Alps 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

or  of  the  Pyrenees  carries  the  provision  for  his  solitude,  on 
starting  to  drive  his  flocks  of  sheep,  or  goats,  or  his  cows, 
to  the°region  of  the  chamois,  not  to  return  till  the  snows 
of  autumn. 

In  a  word,  to  become  a  portion,  little  thought  of,  yet 
necessary,  of  the  furniture  of  the  poor,  in  all  the  varied 
occupations,  rural,  pastoral,  maritime,  or  sedentary,  of  the 
people ;  or,  to  use  a  still  better  expression,  to  be  vulgar 
ized. 

This  ambition  seems  at  first  sight  to  aspire  to  sink,  but 
in  reality  its  aspiration  is  upward,  for  there  is  nothing 
more  lofty  than  the  soul  of  a  nation  ;  and  to  become  the 
habitual  reading,  the  dream,  the  prayer,  and  the  familiar 
converse  of  the  honest  masses,  is  to  become  a  portion  of 
the  soul  of  the  people. 

Gold  is  gold  under  all  shapes,  it  is  true  ;  in  the  ingot  as 
in  the  coin,  it  retains  its  lustre  and  its  price ;  but,  never 
theless,  its  utility  varies  according  to  its  mass,  to  the  value 
set  upon  it  as  an  object  of  luxury  and  exchange,  and  to  the 
frequency  of  its  circulation.  Would  you  prefer  being  the 
gilding  which  glares  uselessly  on  the  steps  of  the  throne, 
or  the  ingot  resting  motionless  in  the  cellars  of  the  bank, 
than  the  little  piece  of  gold  coin,  which  is  continually 
passing  rapidly  from  hand  to  hand  in  the  small  traffic  of 
the  crowd,  to  multiply  its  riches  and  to  satisfy  its  daily 
wants  ?  That  is  the  question. 

For  myself,  in  the  matter  of  literary  publicity,  the  ques 
tion  has  long  since  been  settled  in  my  heart.  I  would 
prefer  being  the  little  volume  held  in  the  hand  of  the  old 
man,  the  matron,  or  the  child,  who  have  given  a  penny 
for  it,  than  the  magnificent  gilt-edged  quarto,  printed  on 
splendid  paper,  illustrated  with  engravings,  and  bound  in 
silk,  and  standing  useless  on  the  shelves  of  the  rich  man's 
library.  I  had  rather  be  the  little  coin,  which  buys,  for 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION. 

a  greater  number  of  my  brother  men,  their  daily  or  their 
evening  amusement.  The  coin  is  worth  less  to  one  man, 
but  is  dearer  to  the  multitude.  If  you  multiply  its  value 
by  all  the  values  it  has  successively  received,  in  its  ex 
change  every  minute,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  crowd  dur 
ing  a  year,  you  will  find  that  the  little  penny  has  rendered 
more  services,  and  represented  more  benefits,  than  the  in 
got.  This  is  the  whole  secret  of  popular  literature,  and  it 
is  also  the  leading  object  and  sole  merit  of  the  present 
publication. 

I  still  entertain  the  thought  which  induced  me  some 
years  ago  to  write  this  letter.  To  be  admired,  you  must 
rise ;  to  be  useful,  you  must  descend. 

LAMARTINE. 


MEMOIRS 

OP 

CELEBRATED  CHARACTERS. 


NELSON. 

THE  hero  whose  history  we  are  now  about  to  narrate  is 
an  Englishman  ;  he  has  gained  the  most  memorable  naval 
victories  of  modern  times  over  our  allies  and  ourselves ; 
nevertheless,  we  shall  render  ample  justice  to  his  valor  and 
distinguished  actions.  The  individual  historian  may  be  a 
patriot,  but  universal  history  admits  no  personal  feeling. 
Precisely  because  it  is  universal,  it  ought  to  be  rigidly  im 
partial  in  awarding  the  merit  and  glory  which  celebrated 
men  of  different  nations  have  won  for  themselves  through 
out  all  ages.  It  acknowledges  neither  cause,  birth,  nor 
country,  and  bows  only  to  genius,  heroism,  and  virtue. 
Written  for  the  benefit  of  all  humanity,  it  considers  every 
thing  that  advances  human  nature  as  an  increase  of  civil 
ization.  National  rivalries  disappear  before  the  elevation 
from  which  history  contemplates  characters  and  events. 
Hannibal  and  Scipio,  the  champions  of  Carthage  and  Rome, 
are  measured  in  the  same  balance.  Both  are  men  :  history 
requires  no  more  ;  it  paints  each  with  the  same  pencil ;  it 
describes  with  equal  warmth  the  exploits  of  one  and  the 
other  for  the  admiration  of  future  ages.  Glory  resembles 
truth ;  it  has  no  frontiers,  but  shines  forth  for  general  in 
struction.  Because  Newton  ascertained  in  England  the 
universal  law  of  gravity,  France  does  not  reject  the  discov 
ery  as  an  antinational  fact.  Newton,  in  this  light,  ceases 
to  be  an  enemy,  and  becomes  a  fellow-countryman,  an  an- 

B  2 


34  NELSON. 

nouncer  of  revelation  to  the  universe.  What  is  true  of 
science  is  equally  so  of  heroism.  We  acknowledge  both 
under  every  flag,  and  describe  them  when  they  fall  in  our 
way.  Narrow  national  pride  may  be  wounded,  but  the 
more  expanded  love  of  human  nature  will  be  glorified  and 
exalted.  Posterity  makes  no  distinctions  between  citizens 
and  foreigners,  friends  and  enemies,  victors  and  vanquish 
ed  ;  it  acknowledges  only  works  and  actions.  Death  na 
tionalizes  the  whole  world  in  one  blended  immortality. 

We  have  thought  it  necessary  to  prepare  our  French 
readers  by  these  preliminary  observations  on  the  spirit  and 
object  of  the  present  narrative,  before  we  proceed  to  draw 
the  character  of  an  enemy  who  recalls  painfully  to  our 
hearts  Aboukir  and  Trafalgar,  those  fatal  Waterloos  of  the 
deep,  in  which  our  navy  was  annihilated,  while  our  cour 
age,  constancy,  and  name  rose  in  reputation. 

Among  the  illustrious  men  who  have  filled  the  foremost 
ranks  in  national  contests,  we  have  always  felt  most  inter 
ested  and  dazzled  by  heroes  of  the  sea.  The  immensity, 
the  power,  the  motion,  the  terrible  attributes  of  the  ele 
ment  on  which  they  combat,  seem  to  elevate  them  above 
the  standard  of  humanity.  This  is  not  a  vain,  imaginative 
delusion,  but  a  just  estimate  of  their  glory.  The  variety 
and  extent  of  natural  or  acquired  faculties  which  must  of 
necessity  be  united  in  the  same  individual,  to  constitute  a 
great  naval  leader,  astonish  the  mind,  and  raise  the  perfect 
sailor  beyond  all  comparison  above  ordinary  warriors. 
The  latter  require  only  the  single  firmness  which  faces  fire 
unmoved ;  the  former  must  be  endowed  with  the  double 
valor  which  equally  braves  death  and  the  fury  of  the  ele 
ments.  But  the  self-possession  which  suffices  on  shore 
will  hardly  be  found  efficient  on  the  ocean.  All  the  re 
sources  of  intelligence  must  be  combined  with  courage  in 
the  chief  who  directs  the  mano3uvre  or  the  broadside  from 
the  quarter-deck  of  an  admiral's  vessel,  or  any  other  man- 
of-war.  He  must  be  endowed  with  science,  to  steer  his 
course  by  the  heavenly  bodies ;  unwearied  vigilance,  to 


NELSON.  35 


preserve  his  ship  from  storms  and  quicksands ;   skill  in 
handling  the  sails,  which  regulate  the  immense  machine 
like  a  master-key  ;  prompt  daring,  to  rush  into  fire  through 
tempest,  to  seek  one  death  through  another ;  self-possession, 
which  dictates  when  to  strike,  or  how  to  parry,  the  decisive 
blow  ;  devotedness,  which  rises  under  the  certainty  of  de 
struction,  and  sacrifices  a  ship  to  save  the  fleet ;  the  as 
cendency  of  a  master-mind,  which  forces  all  to  look  for 
safety  in  a  single  voice  ;  decision,  which  acts  with  the  in 
fallibility  of  inspiration  ;  obedience,  which  yields  up  strong 
conviction  to  superior  authority ;  discipline,  which  bows 
to  the  equality  of  established  laws  ;  a  calm  aspect,  with  a 
beating  heart,  to  inspire  confidence  in  inferiors ;   manly 
grace  and  dignity  of  demeanor,  to  preserve  in  the  close  in 
tercourse  of  a  crowded  ship  the  prestige  which  generals  on 
shore  maintain  by  seclusion  and  reserve,  and  which  naval 
commanders  must  keep  up  in  hourly  and  close  communion  ; 
a  prudent  boldness  in  assuming  the  risk  of  responsibility 
in  sudden  emergencies,  when  a  moment  or  a  manoeuvre 
may  decide  the  fate  of  an  empire.     Disasters  which  can 
not  be  foreseen  or  calculated,  dark  nights  which  scatter  the 
squadron,  storms  which  swallow  up  the  vessels,  fires  which 
consume  them,  currents  which  run  them  aground,  calms 
which  neutralize  them,  rocks  which  dash  them  in  pieces 
—to  foresee,  provide  for,  and  endure  all  these  contingen 
cies  with  the  stoicism  of  a  mind  that  fights  hand  to  hand 
with  destiny  ;  a  narrow  deck,  with  few  witnesses,  for  the 
field  of  battle ;  a  thankless  glory,  always  ready  to  disap 
pear,  which  is  lost  in  a  moment,  and  frequently  never 
reaches  the  ears  of  your  country  ;  a  death  far  distant  from 
all  you  love,  a  coffin  shrouded  in  the  depths  of  ocean,  or 
cast  overboard  as  a  fragment  of  shipwreck !     This  is  an 
epitome  of  the  sailor!  a  hundred  dangers  for  a  single  ray 
of  glory — ten  heroes  concentrated  in  a  single  man !     Such 
were  the  great  naval  warriors  of  France,  of  Spain,  of  En 
gland.     Such  was  Nelson,  the  first  and  last  of  these  Titans 
of  the  sea. 


36  NELSON. 

Horatio  Nelson  was  born  on  the  29th  of  September,  1758, 
in  a  village  of  Norfolk,  in  England,  where  his  father  was 
rector.     His  mother  died  young,  leaving  eleven  children 
without  prospect  or  fortune  to  the  care  of  a  poor  country 
clergyman.     The  distant  relationship  of  this  mother  with 
the  noble  house  of  Walpole  protected  her  orphans :  one 
of  her  brothers,  a  captain  in  the  royal  navy,  promised  to 
provide  for  his  nephews.     They  were  brought  up  by  their 
father  in  the  obscurity  of  the  country,  and  the  close  affec 
tion  which  unites  a  family  in  straitened  circumstances. 
The  rector  was  at  the  same  time  their  parent  and  school 
master  :  the  gentleness  of  his  lessons  impressed  their  hearts 
as  strongly  as  it  did  their  memories.    His  health  gave  way 
under  the  joint  labor  and  solicitude,  and  compelled  him  to 
leave  his  domestic  circle  and  seek  recovery  from  the  min 
eral  springs  of  Bath.     During  his  absence,  his  eldest  son 
assumed  the  government  of  the  household.     His  task  was 
rendered  easy  by  family  affection  ;  the  spirit  of  the  parents 
was  still  invisibly  present  at  that  united  fireside.     One 
morning,  during  the  Easter  holidays,  a  newspaper  lay  open 
on  the  parlor  table  ;  the  young  Horatio,  then  only  twelve 
years  of  age,  eagerly  perused  its  columns,  and  read  there 
the  appointment  of  his  uncle  to  the  command  of  the  Rai- 
sonable,  a  man-of-war  of  sixty-four  guns.     His  future  pro 
fession,  until  then  undecided,  burst  on  him  like  a  flash  of 
lightning.     "  Brother,"  exclaimed  he,  throwing  down  the 
paper,  and  addressing  William  Nelson,  his  elder  by  several 
years,  "  write  to  our  father,  and  beg  him  to  ask  Uncle  Mau 
rice  to  take  me  to  sea  with  him."     William  wrote  accord 
ingly.     The  father,  who  well  knew  the  ardent  soul  of  Ho 
ratio,  and  his  longing  desire  to  support  and  add  credit  to 
the  family,  was  not  at  all  astonished  at  this  resolution  of 
his  favorite  son.     He  had  been  often  heard  to  say  that  this 
boy  was  destined  to  distinguish  himself ;  and  that,  in  what 
ever  career  Providence  marked  out  for  him  (to  use  a  pro 
verbial  sea  expression),  he  would  reach  the  mast-head  !     Not 
expecting  to  live  long,  and  wishing  to  leave  this  child  less 


NELSON.  37 

exposed  to  the  vicissitudes  of  chance,  he  wrote  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Captain  Maurice  Suckling,  and  asked  him 
to  receive  Horatio  on  board  his  own  ship.  "What!"  re 
plied  the  uncle,  surprised  at  this  desire  on  the  part  of  one 
so  young  in  years  and  feeble  in  constitution,  "  poor  little 
Horatio,  the  weakest  and  most  delicate  of  the  family,  does 
he  want  to  encounter  the  severities  of  a  sea  life  ?  But, 
since  he  wishes  it  himself,  let  him  come.  The  first  time 
we  go  into  action,  a  cannon  shot  may,  perhaps,  settle  his 
destiny  forever !"  But  the  courage  of  the  boy  was  in  his 
soul,  not  in  his  muscles.  Once  he  asked  his  grandmother 
what  fear  meant,  which  he  had  so  often  heard  named. 
On  receiving  the  explanation,  "  It  is  very  strange,"  he  ob 
served  ;  "  I  never  understood  what  it  was,  for  I  have  never 
felt  the  sensation !" 

A  trusty  sailor  of  his  uncle's  crew  came  to  conduct  him 
on  board  the  Raisonable,  which  lay  at  anchor  at  the  mouth 
of  the  river.  The  little  Horatio  quitted  before  daylight 
the  roof  which  had  sheltered  his  infancy,  and  tore  himself, 
with  sobs,  from  the  parting  embraces  of  his  brother  Wil 
liam  and  his  sisters.  His  courage  consisted  in  loftiness  of 
soul,  and  was  combined  with  the  tenderest  sensibility. 
It  was  only  by  violently  restraining  his  tears  that  he  ar 
rived  with  dry  eyes  at  the  vessel.  His  uncle  was  not  then 
on  board ;  the  unknown,  isolated  boy  remained  as  a  total 
stranger  on  deck  all  day  and  the  following  night,  without 
any  one  addressing  a  word  to  him.  To  the  close  of  his 
life  he  remembered  those  hours  of  lonely  anguish,  and  that 
cruel  reception ;  but  from  that  time  forward  the  quarter 
deck  of  a  man-of-war  was  destined  to  become  his  country, 
his  empire,  his  glory,  and  his  tomb. 

Horatio  made  two  cruises  in  the  Raisonable  and  the 
Triumph,  another  line-of-battle  ship  also  commanded  by 
his  uncle  ;  but  the  Triumph  being  paid  off  at  the  end  of 
the  war  with  Spain,  he  embarked  as  a  volunteer  in  a  mer 
chant  vessel  bound  for  a  long  voyage,  and  in  this  pro 
tracted  and  adventurous  navigation  acquired  the  boldness 


38  NELSON. 

of  a  sailor  and  the  prudence  of  a  consummate  pilot.  His 
uncle,  on  his  return,  received  him  once  more  on  board  the 
Triumph,  where  he  superintended  in  the  Thames  a  naval 
school  of  practical  and  theoretical  science  for  the  instruc 
tion  of  young  midshipmen.  Nelson  soon  grew  tired  of 
this  inactivity  in  a  vessel  always  at  anchor ;  he  had  ac 
quired  a  passion  for  the  sea,  and  wished  to  fathom  it,  even 
to  its  profoundest  mysteries.  A  voyage  of  discovery  was 
then  preparing  to  the  North  Pole.  Horatio  obtained  his 
uncle's  permission  to  enroll  himself  as  a  volunteer,  and 
embarked  on  board  the  Race-horse,  one  of  the  ships  se 
lected  for  the  expedition.  The  Race-horse,  having  pene 
trated  to  the  utmost  limits  of  the  then  navigable  ocean, 
was  inclosed  for  many  weary  months  in  the  ice,  and  suf 
fered  all  the  extremities  invariably  -attendant  on  similar 
enterprises,  in  which  so  many  bold  adventurers  have  found 
a  grave.  Nelson  engaged  in  single  combat  with  a  bear, 
which  had  inclosed  him  in  its  huge  paws,  and  owed  his 
life  to  a  comrade,  who  shot  the  animal  over  its  half-stran 
gled  prey.  "  Why  did  a  boy  of  your  tender  age  and  dis- 
proportioned  strength  encounter  such  an  unnecessary  dan 
ger?"  said  the  captain,  in  reproving  him  for  his  rashness. 
"  I  wanted  the  skin  of  a  bear  for  my  father  and  sisters," 
replied  the  young  hero,  to  whose  mind  the  image  of  his 
paternal  home  was  ever  present.  His  health  improved, 
and  his  constitution  fortified  itself  by  these  rude  experi 
ments  in  a  sailor's  life. 

After  a  year  lost  in  looking  on  those  vast  deserts  of  ice 
which  nature  opposes  to  navigation  in  the  Polar  regions, 
the  expedition  returned  to' the  open  sea,  and  Nelson,  placed 
by  his  uncle  on  board  the  Sea-horse,  a  light  corvette  of 
twenty  guns,  sailed  toward  the  Indian  Ocean.  There  he 
became  remarkable,  notwithstanding  his  extreme  youth, 
for  his  zeal  in  the  service,  his  skill  in  navigation,  and  his 
indifference  to  the  fury  of  the  element,  which  he  had  learned 
to  conquer  from  his  infancy.  But,  after  being  stationed 
two  years  in  those  unhealthy  latitudes,  he  was  affected  by 


NELSON.  39 

a  decay  of  the  vital  powers,  which  seemed  to  indicate 
an  early  close  to  his  career,  and  a  profound  melancholy 
prompted  him  to  abandon  his  profession.  He  even  seems 
to  have  meditated  self-destruction. 

"  One  evening,"  he  tells  us  himself,  "  from  the  deck  of 
the  ship,  I  contemplated  the  sea  as  an  hospitable  tomb, 
and  was  on  the  point  of  seeking  beneath  the  waves  eternal 
repose.  I  neither  saw  nor  felt  any  opening  prospect  of 
attaining  glory,  the  object  of  my  ambition.  Happily,  Prov 
idence,  by  presenting  to  my  mind  the  images  and  voices 
of  my  father,  my  brothers,  and  my  sisters,  relieved  and  ar 
rested  me  by  a  sudden  light.  I  remembered  that  I  belong 
ed  to  my  king  and  country,  and  that  if  I  proved  worthy, 
they  would  take  care  of  my  fortune  and  memory.  I  aban 
doned  that  refuge  of  the  weak,  that  death  so  utterly  value 
less  to  society.  If  I  am  to  perish,  I  exclaimed,  I  will  die 
in  the  service  of  my  native  land  ;  /  will  be  a  hero,  and  face 
every  danger,  as  with  the  increase  of  peril  I  shall  rise  also 
in  fame  and  virtue.  From  that  moment  I  became  calm, 
reassured,  and  satisfied,  as  if  I  had  received  a  supernatural 
revelation  of  the  destiny  that  awaited  me." 

Nelson  returned  to  England  for  the  recovery  of  his  health. 
After  passing  a  brilliant  examination,  he  was  promoted  to 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  in  the  Royal  Navy .  He  then  cruised 
and  privateered  in  the  American  seas,  against  the  Ameri 
cans,  fighting  for  independence.  He  defended  the  island 
of  Jamaica  against  the  fleet  and  disembarkations  of  the 
French  admiral,  the  Count  D'Estaing.  He  took  part  in  the 
expeditions  fitted  out  by  the  English  against  the  Spanish 
colonies.  He  risked  his  life,  like  an  adventurer  who  seeks 
death  or  glory,  at  the  head  of  small  detachments  which 
attempted  the  assault  of  towns  and  fortresses  on  the  sea- 
coast.  Bivouacking  one  day  in  the  forests  of  Peru,  to  give 
time  to  the  handful  of  men  he  commanded  to  dress  their 
wounds  and  bury  their  slain  comrades,  he  fell  asleep  at 
the  foot  of  a  tree.  An  enormous  serpent  glided  under  his 
cloak,  coiled  round  his  leg,  and  stung  him  in  the  foot. 


40  NELSON. 

The  antidotes  supplied  by  the  Indians,  and  his  own  natural 
strength,  preserved  his  life,  but  his  constitution  retained 
permanent  symptoms  of  the  mortal  poison.  Brought  back 
to  Europe  in  a  dying  state  by  Admiral  Cornwallis,  who 
treated  him  more  with  the  anxiety  of  a  parent  than  a  com 
mander,  he  retired  for  several  months  to  the  country,  to 
the  fireside  of  his  father  and  his  brothers,  to  which  his 
rising  reputation  had  already  begun  to  attach  celebrity. 
On  his  return  to  London,  he  was  appointed  to  the  command 
of  a  sloop  of  twenty-six  guns,  for  a  winter's  cruise  in  the 
North  Sea,  and  to  examine  the  coasts  of  Denmark.  Dur 
ing  this  rude  service  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  possibil 
ity  of  one  of  the  most  daring  and  subtle  enterprises  of  his 
life — the  attack  on  Copenhagen. 

In  the  spring,  the  Albemarle,  under  Nelson,  was  ordered 
to  return  to  America.  On  approaching  the  coasts  of  Can 
ada,  he  was  chased  and  surrounded  by  four  French  frig 
ates,  from  whom  escape  appeared  impossible  ;  but  prefer 
ring  the  loss  of  his  ship  to  the  humiliation  of  a  surrender, 
he  steered  with  all  sails  set  into  shallow  water,  where  he 
was  in  danger  of  running  aground  at  every  step.  His  skill 
and  good  fortune  carried  him  safely  over  the  bar,  which 
the  frigates  dared  not  approach.  During  a  stay  of  some 
months  at  Gluebec,  he  became  deeply  enamored  of  a  young 
and  beautiful  Canadian  girl,  inferior  to  himself  in  rank. 
He  was  on  the  point  of  sacrificing  ambition  to  love,  and  of 
quitting  the  service  to  marry  the  object  of  his  passion, 
when  the  squadron  received  orders  to  sail  for  Europe.  His 
officers,  impatient  at  his  infatuation,  landed  to  tear  him 
from  his  idol,  and  carried  him  on  board  by  force.  From 
this  time  it  was  foreseen  that  love,  the  predominating  pas 
sion  of  tender  souls,  would  prove  the  quicksand  of  his  life. 

Appointed  to  the  command  of  the  Boreas,  Nelson  in 
creased  his  reputation  and  popularity  in  the  navy  by  his 
exploits  and  captures  on  the  coasts  of  America.  The 
share  of  prize  money  belonging  to  his  ship's  crew  amount 
ed  to  forty  thousand  pounds  by  the  time  the  Boreas  re-en- 


NELSON.  41 

tcred  the  Thames.  The  Admiralty  contested  a  portion  of 
this  claim  with  the  sailors.  Nelson  applied  direct  to  the 
King,  who  loaded  him  with  compliments  and  thanks,  and 
thus  enabled  him  to  triumph  over  the  naval  authorities. 
Having  forgotten  his  first  love,  he  was  again  captivated  by 
the  beauty  and  virtues  of  a  young  widow  of  nineteen,  Mrs. 
Nisbet,  and  married  her  on  the  llth  of  March,  1787.  His 
companions  in  arms  lamented  this  union,  which  seemed  to 
deprive  the  service  of  a  rising  officer,  who  was  already 
claimed  as  the  future  hero  of  England.  "  Yesterday,"  says 
the  journal  of  one  of  his  comrades,  who  became  afterward 
his  second  in  command  on  several  occasions,  "  the  English 
navy  lost  one  of  its  brightest  ornaments.  The  marriage 
of  such  an  officer  as  Nelson  is  a  national  calamity.  Had 
he  remained  single,  he  would  have  been  the  greatest  na 
val  commander  this  country  has  ever  produced." 

The  sequel  proved  that  these  predictions  were  errone 
ous.  Nelson,  giving  himself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  do 
mestic  life,  but  ever  ready,  as  before,  to  sacrifice  it  at  his 
country's  call,  conducted  his  bride  to  the  residence  of  his 
father.  The  old  man,  infirm  and  lonely,  lived  only  to  par 
ticipate  in  the  happiness  and  rising  glory  of  his  son.  "  My 
dear  Horatio,"  said  he,  as  he  embraced  him,  "  your  pres 
ence  renews  the  springs  of  life  within  me  ;  but,"  contin 
ued  he,  with  tears,  "  perhaps  it  would  have  been  better 
for  me  not  to  have  been  spared  for  this  blissful  moment, 
as  death  will  so  soon  summon  me  away.  My  age  and 
weakness  increase  daily,  and  I  can  not  long  enjoy  your 
reputation." 

The  abode  of  Nelson  and  his  wife  in  the  paternal  man 
sion  brought  back  the  reminiscences  and  habits  of  that 
sweet  rural  life  which  had  embellished  his  early  years. 
With  his  young  companion  he  renewed  his  rambles  in  the 
fields,  his  labors  at  the  harvest,  his  conversations  and 
readings  in  the  garden  of  the  parsonage.  He  seemed  en 
tirely  to  have  forgotten  the  ocean,  and  to  have  taken  root 
on  his  natal  soil,  with  the  occupations  and  feelings  of  a 
country  life. 


42  NELSON. 

This  sweet  interval  of  repose  was  uninterrupted  until 
war  broke  out  with  France  in  1792.     In  the  month  of  De 
cember  in  that  year,  Nelson  was  appointed  by  the  Admi 
ralty  to  the  command  of  the  Agamemnon,  a  man-of-war 
destined  to  form  one  of  Admiral  Hood's  squadron  in  the 
Mediterranean.     At  the  moment  when  the  people  of  the 
south  of  France  surrendered  up  Toulon  to  the  English,  and 
by  a  crime  against  their  country  escaped  the  outrages  of 
the  Terrorists  against  human  nature,  Admiral  Hood  de 
tached  the  Agamemnon  from  his  squadron,  and  ordered 
Nelson  to  protect  by  his  presence  the  coast  and  harbor  of 
Naples  against  the  attacks  of  the  Republican  vessels  which 
threatened  that  kingdom,  the  ally  of  Great  Britain.     Nel 
son  entered  the  bay  as  a  deliverer,  and  was  received  as  a 
pledge  of  security.     Sir  William  Hamilton,  the  English 
embassador   at  Naples,  and  all-powerful  with  the  royal 
family,  to  whom  he  assured  the  protection  of  his  govern 
ment,  received  from  the  hands  of  Nelson  the  dispatches 
of  Admiral  Hood,  and  the  news  of  the  naval  occupation  of 
Toulon.     This  old  man,  inflamed  with  hatred  against  the 
Republic,  and  glowing  with  the  triumph  of  his  country, 
thenceforward  become  mistress  of  the  great  maritime  ar 
senal  of  France,  received  Nelson  as  he  would  have  greet 
ed  the  savior  of  Europe.     His  exalted  enthusiasm  already 
pictured  to  him  in  this  young  commodore  the  avenger  of 
dethroned  kings,  the  scourge  of  revolutionary  governments, 
and  the  prop  of  restored  monarchies.     Leaving  Nelson  in 
his  cabinet,  he  ran  to  the  apartments  of  the  embassadress, 
and,  addressing  Lady  Hamilton  with  a  countenance  beam 
ing  with  bright  omens,  "  I  am  going  to  introduce  to  you," 
he  said,  "  an  officer  who  has  not  much  pretension  to  per 
sonal  beauty,  but  who  is  one  day  destined  to  astonish  the 
world  by  his  great  achievements.     I  have  never  yet  offer 
ed  the  hospitality  of  this  palace  to  any  officer  or  admiral 
of  our  squadrons,  but  I  am  proud  to  open  my  doors  to  Nel 
son.     Get  ready  for  him  the  apartment  we  had  selecte 
for  the  son  of  the  King  of  England  himself." 


NELSON.  43 

The  embassadress,  thus  prepared  by  her  husband,  and 
even  more  devoted  than  he  was  to  the  interests  of  the  Nea 
politan  court,  received  Nelson  as  a  man  she  was  prede 
termined  to  bend  to  her  own  views.  He  became  from  the 
first  day  an  inmate  of  the  embassador's  house  ;  and  young 
Joshua  Nisbet,  his  wife's  son,  who  had  embarked  with 
him  as  a  midshipman  in  the  Agamemnon,  was  welcomed 
with  caresses  by  Lady  Hamilton  as  if  she  had  been  his 
second  mother. 

Thus  originated",  by  the  combination  of  events,  and  the 
accidental  sympathy  of  an  old  man,  the  fatal  attachment 
between  Nelson  and  Lady  Hamilton  ;  which,  like  the  pas 
sion  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  inflamed  the  coasts  of  the 
Mediterranean,  changed  the  face  of  the  world,  and  carried 
on  to  glory,  to  shame,  and  to  crime,  a  hero  entangled  in 
the  snares  of  beauty.     To  comprehend  clearly  the  infatu 
ation  of  Nelson,  it  becomes  necessary  to  retrace  the  life 
and  adventures  of  Lady  Hamilton,  at  first  the  Aspasia,  and 
afterward  the  Herodias  of  her  age — elevated  by  extraordi 
nary  beauty,  by  fortune  and  blind  affection,  from  the  hovel 
of  her  mother,  and  the  suspected  dens  of  London,  to  the 
rank  of  English  embassadress,  the  hand  of  a  gentleman  of 
distinguished  rank  and  ability,  and  the  close  intimacy  of  a 
queen°of  whom  she  was  the  protectress  and  ally  rather  than 
the  dependent  companion.     Supreme  beauty  is  a  royalty 
of  the  senses,  which  subjugates  even  the  masters  and  mis 
tresses  of  empires.     These  conquests  are  the  miracles  of 
nature ;  few  have  arrived  at  the  dominion  which  Lady 
Hamilton,  the  modern  Theodora,  exercised  by  her  charms. 
Her  only  name  was  Emma,  for  her  father  remained  al 
ways  unknown.     She  was  one  of  the  children  of  love,  of 
crime,  of  mystery,  whom  nature  delights  to   overwhelm 
with  gifts  in  compensation  for  the  loss  of  hereditary  claims. 
Her  mother  was  a  poor  farmer's  servant  in  the  county  of 
Chester.     Whether  she  had  lost  her  husband  by  death,  or, 
like  Hagar,  had  been  abandoned  by  her  seducer,  she  ar 
rived  unknown,  and  reduced  to  beggary,  at  a  village  in 


44  NELSON. 

Wales,  the  Switzerland  of  England.     She  carried  in  her 
arms  a  female  infant  of  a  few  months  old.     The  beauty 
of  both  attracted  the  simple  mountaineers  of  the  village 
of  Hawarden ;   the   stranger  picked  up   a  livelihood  by 
working  for  the  farmers  and  gleaning  in  the  fields.     The 
marked°  and  noble  features  of  the  child  served  to  propa 
gate  the  rumor  that  her  birth  was  illustrious  and  myste 
rious  ;  she  was  said  to  be  a  daughter  of  Lord  Halifax. 
Nothing  afterward,  either  in  her  fortune  or  education,  gave 
color  to  the  report.     At  the  age  of  twelve  she  was  received 
in  a  neighboring  family  as  children's  servant.     The  fre 
quent  visits  of  her  master  and  mistress  to  London,  where 
they  resided  in  the  house  of  their  relative,  the  celebrated 
engraver  Boydell,  gave  her  the  first  idea  of  the  impression 
her  figure  produced  on  the  crowd  in  public  places,  and  a 
vague°  presentiment   of  the  high  fortune  to   which  her 
beauty  would  exalt  her.     At  sixteen  she  made  her  escape 
from  Hawarden,  a  field  too  obscure  and  circumscribed  ior 
her  expanded  dreams,  and  engaged  herself  in  the  house 
hold  of  a  respectable  tradesman  in  London.     A  lady  of  su 
perior  rank,  struck  by  her  appearance  in  the  shop,  eleva 
ted  her  to  a  higher  position  of  servitude.     Almost  without 
employment  in  an  opulent  family,  Emma  gave  herself  up 
to  the  perusal  of  those  fascinating  romances  which  create 
an  imaginary  world  for  the  love  or  ambition  of  youthful 
minds  ;°she  frequented  the  theatres,  and  imbibed  there  the 
first  inspirations  of  the  genius  of  dramatic  expression,  of 
action  and  attitude,  which  she  embodied  afterward  in  a 
new  art,  when  she  became  the  animated  statue  of  beauty 
and  passion. 

Being  discharged  by  her  mistress  for  some  household 
negligence,  her  growing  taste  for  the  theatre  induced  her 
to  seek  a  situation  in  the  family  of  one  of  the  managers. 
The  irregularity  and  freedom  of  that  establishment,  the 
constant  Intercourse  with  actors,  musicians,  and  dancers, 
initiated  her  in  the  subordinate  mechanism  of  the  dramat 
ic  art.  She  was  then  in  the  flower  of  her  youth,  and  the 


NELSON.  45 


full  perfection  of  her  beauty.     Her  tall  and  elegant  figure 
equaled  in  natural  grace  the  studied  attitudes  of  the  most 
practiced  figurantes.     Her  voice  was  soft,  mellow,  and  ca 
pable   of  expressing  deep  tragic   emotion.     Her   counte 
nance,  endowed  with  susceptibility  as  delicate  and  vary 
ing  as  the  first  feelings  of  a  virgin  mind,  was,  at  the  same 
time,  pensive  and  dazzling.     All  who  saw  her  at  that  pe 
riod  of  her  life  agreed  in  describing  her  as  a  resuscitation 
of  Psyche.     Purity  of  soul,  transparent  through  elegance 
of  feature,  surrounded  her,  even  in  her  dependent  position, 
with  a  respect  which  admiration  dared  not  overleap.     She 
spread  fire  without  being  entangled  in  the  flame  herself; 
her  innocence  found  a  safeguard  even  in  the  excess  of  her 
beauty.     Her  first  fall  was  not  a  descent  to  vice,  but  a 
gliding  into  imprudence  arising  from  a  yielding  nature. 

A  young  countryman  of  the  village  of  Hawarden,  son  of 
the  farmer  who  had  first  given  an  asylum  to  her  mother, 
was  seized  by  a  press-gang,  and  carried  in  fetters  to  the 
fleet  at  anchor  in  the  Thames.     Emma,  at  the  entreaty  of 
the  prisoner's  sister,  accompanied  her  to  the  captain  of  the 
ship  to  implore  the  liberation  of  her  brother.     Won  by 
the  beauty  of  the  fair  suppliant,  he  listened  to  her  prayers 
and  tears,  removed  her  from  her  low  though  honest  station, 
overwhelmed  her  with  shameful  luxury,  furnished  a  house 
for  her,  supplied  her  with  masters  in  every  ornamental  ac 
complishment,  boastfully  displayed  his  conquest  in  public, 
and  left  her,  when  the  squadron  sailed,  exposed  without 
safeguard  to  new  seductions.     One  of  his  friends,  bearing 
a  noble  name,  and  possessed  of  a  large  fortune,  carried  off 
the  faithless  Emma  to  an  estate  in  the  country,  treated  her 
as  his  wife,  made  her  the  queen  of  hunting-parties,  fetes, 
and  balls,  and  'finally,  growing  tired  of  her  at  the  end  c 
the  season,  left  her  in  London  at  the  mercy  of  chance,  n 
cessity,  and  crime. 

Thrown  back  from  this  golden  cloud  on  the  hard  pave 
ment  of  the  metropolis,  and  depreciated  in  the  eyes  oi  her 
former  protectors  by  the  publicity  of  her  adventures, 


46  NELSON. 

Emma  was  received  by  night,  and  in  rags,  under  the  care 
of  one  of  those  infamous  procuresses  who  carry  on  the 
trade  of  seduction.  Accident  alone  preserved  her  from 
infamy.  The  woman  who  had  given  her  shelter,  struck 
by  the  natural  grace  and  modesty  of  her  demeanor,  and 
astonished  at  her  overwhelming  charms,  introduced  her  as 
a  natural  miracle  to  a  celebrated  physician,  eminent  for 
his  admiration  of  female  beauty.  This  was  the  well- 
known  Dr.  Graham  (the  inventor  of  the  celestial  bed),  a 
voluptuous  and  mystical  quack,  who  professed  to  worship 
and  to  possess  some  profound  intelligences  respecting  the 
secrets  of  nature,  by  which  means  he  had  acquired  a  sus 
picious  and  fantastic  reputation. 

Dr.  Graham  loudly  expressed  his  admiration  at  the  sight 
of  the  young  orphan,  and  liberally  rewarded  her  introducer. 
He  received  her  into  his  own  house,  publicly  advertised 
that  he  possessed  a  rare  example  of  the  efficacy  of  his  spe 
cifics  to  produce  the  perfections  of  life,  beauty,  and  health, 
in  a  human  being ;  and  called  upon  the  incredulous  to 
come  and  convince  themselves  by  looking  on  an  animated 
image  of  the  goddess  Hygeia.  At  this  appeal,  addressed 
to  licentiousness  rather  than  science,  the  disciples  of  Gra 
ham  crowded  mysteriously  to  his  amphitheatre. 

The  unfortunate  victim  of  her  own  charms  appeared 
clothed  in  transparent  garments,  in  the  costume  of  a  di 
vinity  ;  her  covering  scarcely  concealed  her  blushes.  The 
pride  of  the  physician  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  specta 
tors  burst  forth  in  loud  acclamations.  Painting  and  statu 
ary  had  never  before  presented  ideal  form  and  coloring 
equal  to  this  example  of  living  nature.  Painters  and 
sculptors  vied  in  rivalry  to  copy  from  this  divine  original. 
Among  them,  Romney,  one  of  the  leading  artists  of  the 
day,  produced  many  duplicates  of  the  same  lovely  counte 
nance.  He  painted  the  fair  Emma  as  the  goddess  of  the 
heathen  mythology,  and  under  the  attributes  of  the  lead 
ing  heroines  of  poetry  and  the  drama.  These  portraits, 
being  engraved,  multiplied  throughout  Europe  the  features 


NELSON.  47 

of  the  unknown  beauty.  Romney,  like  Apelles,  subdued 
by  Campaspe,  became  enamored  of  his  model,  and  carried 
her  off  from  Graham  as  an  exhaustless  treasure  of  art  and 
fortune.  He  sold  for  their  weight  in  gold  her  portraits  ei 
ther  as  the  sorceress  Circe,  or  as  Innocence  holding  a  sen 
sitive  plant,  and  astonished  at  the  motion  of  the  flower. 
This  anonymous  publicity  at  the  same  time  protected  her 
modesty.  The  produce  of  her  attitudes,  which  she  received 
from  Graham  and  Romney,  enabled  her  to  live  in  London 
in  the  shadow  of  respectable  retirement.  The  celebrated 
Madam  Lebrun,  artist  in  ordinary  to  the  Queen  of  France, 
Marie  Antoinette,  painted  her  at  this  time  as  a  Bacchante, 
and  carried  her  features  over  to  France. 

A  young  Englishman,  of  the  illustrious  house  of  War 
wick,  Mr.  Greville,  nephew  to  Sir  William  Hamilton,  em- 
bassador  at  Naples,  discovered  Emma  in  this  obscurity. 
Passion  made  him  believe  in  her  virtue ;  he  loved,  and 
endeavored  to  seduce  her.  Wrhether  she  really  desired 
to  redeem  the  errors  of  her  early  life,  or  preferred  an 
honorable  name  to  a  large  fortune,  she  steadily  resisted 
his  solicitations,  and  was  only  won  by  a  promise  of  mar 
riage  as  soon  as  the  consent  of  his  family  could  be  con 
quered  by  perseverance.  They  lived  as  man  and  wife 
during  several  years.  Three  children  followed  this  secret 
union,  and  nothing  for  a  time  disturbed  their  happiness. 
Emma,  always  grateful  and  warm-hearted,  even  at  the 
expense  of  pride,  sent  for  her  indigent  mother  to  reside 
with  her,  and  treated  her  with  respect  and  kindness,  in 
spite  of  her  servile  condition. 

In  1789,  after  this  interval  of  domestic  happiness,  con 
stantly  interrupted  by  the  remonstrances  of  his  relations, 
Greville,  deprived  of  his  salaries  of  office,  and  pressed  by 
accumulated  debt,  hesitated  between  the  necessity  and 
sorrow  of  casting  off  the  woman  he  considered  as  his  wife. 
Their  mutual  grief  nt  the  prospect  of  separation  poisoned 
the  last  days  of  their  intercourse.  At  this  crisis,  Greville's 
uncle,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  arrived  in  London.  He  was 


48  NELSON. 

unmarried,  master  of  a  large  fortune,  and  intended  his 
nephew  for  his  heir.  But  his  aristocratic  consequence 
revolted  from  the  idea  of  acknowledging  as  his  grand- 
nephews  the  children  of  a  prostitute.  He  refused  either 
to  consent  to  the  marriage  of  Greville  or  to  pay  his  debts  : 
the  nephew  saw  no  resource  but  in  the  intercession  of  his 
mistress.  Emma,  at  his  suggestion,  attired  herself  in  the 
garb  of  her  infancy,  and  in  a  stuff  gown  and  straw  hat 
waited  upon  his  uncle.  She  threw  herself  at  his  feet, 
confessed  her  fault,  shed  tears  as  persuasive  as  they  were 
genuine,  appealed  to  the  tender  pledges  of  her  love,  and 
besought  Sir  William  to  pardon  the  mother  and  father  for 
the  sake  of  the  unfortunate  children.  Her  triumph  was 
more  signal  than  she  anticipated.  The  old  man,  fasci 
nated  by  features  and  accents  which  surpassed  all  he  had 
ever  looked  on  or  listened  to,  either  in  the  classic  master 
pieces  of  Athenian  statuary  or  on  the  voluptuous  boards 
of  the  Italian  opera-houses,  yielded  to  the  seduction  which 
had  enchained  his  nephew.  The  same  love  which  he 
had  refused  to  understand,  revenged  itself  by  reducing 
him  to  the  thraldom  of  Greville.  The  beauty  of  Emma 
overpowered  him,  and,  like  one  seized  by  sudden  mad 
ness,  he  forgot,  after  two  or  three  interviews,  his  age,  his 
rank,  his  repugnance  to  matrimony,  her  obscure  birth  and 
irregular  life,  the  mutual  affection  long  subsisting  between 
her  and  her  paramour,  the  living  pledges  of  their  love, 
the  scandal  and  infamy  of  a  traffic  in  female  charms ; 
and,  finally,  purchased  the  possession  of  the  venal  beauty 
by  the  discharge  of  his  nephew's  embarrassments.  They 
were  privately  married  in  London,  and  Sir  William  has 
tened  back  to  Naples  with  his  prize,  leaving  his  union 
undeclared.  Her  beauty  dazzled  Italy  as  it  had  previous 
ly  fascinated  England.  But  the  knowledge  of  her  avoca 
tion  as  a  model,  which  could  not  be  concealed,  and  a  ru 
mor  of  the  shameless  bargain  between  the  uncle  and  neph 
ew,  preceded  her  to  Naples.  The  embassador,  to  stifle 
these  reports  and  re-establish  his  idol,  was  compelled  to 


NELSON.  49 

the  ceremony  of  a  public  marriage.  Scandal  disappeared 
before  the  rank  and  resistless  charms  of  the  young  em- 
bassadress.  She  was  presented  at  court,  and  at  the  first 
glance  won  the  admiration  and  enthusiastic  attachment 
of  the  queen. 

dueen  Caroline  of  Naples,  with  Marie  Antoinette  of 
France,  were  daughters  of  the  Empress  Maria  Teresa  of 
Austria.  Equal  in  beauty  to  the  Glueen  of  France,  but 
of  more  steady  temperament,  Caroline  possessed  the  ge 
nius  of  her  mother,  while  of  her  sister's  virtues  she  only 
shared  the  courage.  Young,  handsome,  and  popular,  she 
was  married  to  an  indolent  monarch,  who  suffered  him 
self  to  be  governed  by  her  superior  energy.  She  ruled 
the  kingdom  with  fetes  and  entertainments,  by  the  hands 
of  ministers  selected  from  her  personal  favorites.  She 
was  beset  by  a  restless  activity  sufficient  to  embroil  all 
Europe,  and  encouraged  ideas  too  gigantic  for  a  narrow 
kingdom.  Horror  at  the  murder  of  her  sister  by  the 
French  regicides  ;  the  fear  of  being  dragged  herself  from 
the  throne  by  reforming  Italians  ;  hatred  against  the  new 
principles  which,  in  acknowledging  the  rights  of  the  peo 
ple,  curbed  the  despotism  of  kings — all  these  feelings  ren 
dered  the  Q,ueen  of  Naples  a  living,  concentrated  conspir 
acy,  a  crowned  Nemesis  ever  in  arms  against  the  progress 
of  revolution.  Compelled  by  the  constrained  neutrality 
and  weakness  of  her  states  to  tolerate  a  French  embassa- 
dor  at  Naples,  she  revenged  herself  for  this  forced  humil 
iation  by  a  fruitless  but  busy  perpetual  under-current  of 
intrigue  with  Austria,  Russia,  and,  above  all,  with  Eng 
land.  To  entangle  the  cabinet  of  London  in  her  own  des 
tiny,  and  thus  to  constitute  a  maritime  power,  the  ruler 
of  the  seas,  a  protection  equally  against  the  French  and 
her  own  subjects,  became  at  once  the  necessity,  the  policy . 
and  the  ruling  passion  of  the  dueen  of  Naples.  To  ob 
tain  the  ardent  co-operation  of  the  English  embassador 
was  the  first  step  toward  the  accomplishment  of  her  plaa. 
The  presence  of  Lady  Hamilton  at  Naples,  the  controlling 

VOL.  T.— C 


50  NELSON. 

empire  which  this  titled  courtesan  exercised  over  the 
heart  of  her  husband,  presented  to  the  queen  the  readiest 
means  of  retaining  England  in  her  interests.  Sir  William 
Hamilton  possessed  the  confidence  of  Pitt,  and  Pitt  held 
in  his  hands  the  votes,  the  subsidies,  and  the  fleets  of 
Great  Britain.  A  young  peasant  girl  from  Wales  thus, 
by  the  power  of  caprice,  presided  over  the  destinies  of 
Italy. 

But  in  the  sudden  and  irresistible  charm  which  drew 
the  Q/ueen  of  Naples  toward  Lady  Hamilton,  policy  was 
less  decisive  than  nature.  The  influence  of  beauty  upon 
the  daughters  of  Maria  Teresa  was  one  of  the  prevailing 
characteristics  of  the  family.  Equally  .susceptible  of  ten 
der  and  exalted  emotions,  they  required  friendship  and 
favoritism  to  an  extent  which  caused  them  to  be  calum 
niated  even  in  their  purest  attachments.  The  intimacy 
of  the  queen  and  Lady  Hamilton  soon  gave  rise  to  injuri 
ous  reports.  But  Caroline  of  Naples,  of  a  more  manly 
and  inflexible  mind  than  her  sister,  Marie  Antoinette,  de 
fied  all  murmurs  from  the  recesses  of  the  palace  or  the 
ranks  of  the  troops.  The  dread  of  her  name  imposed  si 
lence  on  hatred  and  jealousy,  and  terror  stood  beside  her 
on  the  steps  of  the  throne. 

The  excitement  produced  by  the  beauty  of  Lady  Ham 
ilton  at  this  epoch  of  her  life  became  a  species  of  idolatry 
throughout  Europe.  Painters  and  sculptors  hastened  from 
all  parts  of  Italy  to  study  her  features.  "  From  this  day 
forth,  and  throughout  the  summer"  (it  was  thus  that  one 
of  the  most  celebrated  among  them  wrote  at  the  time),  "  my 
hours  are  no  longer  my  own.  I  devote  them  entirely  to 
copying  the  numberless  beauties  which  the  face  and  figure 
of  this  divine  woman  continually  present  to  me — I  know  no 
other  epithet  suitable  to  one  so  immeasurably  superior  to  her 
sex.  Nevertheless,  I  fear  to  lose  her  for  a  time,  as  she  shortly 
proposes  to  absent  herself  with  Sir  William  Hamilton.  They 
are  too  much  incommoded  here  by  the  crowds  that  beset 
them  in  the  theatres,  the  streets,  the  public  gardens,  and 


NELSON.  51 

wherever  they  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  this  prodigy.  If 
Lady  Hamilton  were  vain,  she  would  infallibly  lose  her 
head.  I  am  going  to  paint  her  as  Joan  of  Arc,  as  a  Mag 
dalen,  as  a  Bacchante1,  and  as  all  the  youthful  heroines  of 
the  stage.  One  day  she  refused  to  place  herself  in  the  ac 
customed  attitude.  I  thought  she  had  grown  cold  on  the 
subject,  and  my  art  deserted  me  ;  but  she  took  pity  on  her 
devoted  admirer,  and  never  did  I  paint  a  head  so  beautiful 
as  the  last,  which  she  destines  as  a  present  for  her  moth 
er.  My  health  returned  suddenly,  as  if  by  a  miracle." 

The  queen,  recognizing  in  the  young  embassadress  an 
instrument  of  policy  as  well  as  an  object  of  personal  re 
gard,  gave  herself  up  entirely  to  this  new  attachment. 
Lady  Hamilton  became  the  royal  favorite,  the  idol  of  the 
palace,  the  secret  minister  of  the  court  of  Naples,  the  con 
fidante  of  the  designs,  the  sorrows,  and  pleasures  of  her 
friend.  She  passed  whole  days  and  nights  in  the  apart 
ment  of  the  queen  and  her  children.  She  descended  from 
her  rank  as  the  wife  of  an  embassador,  to  resume  of  her 
own  choice,  in  attendance  on  the  person  of  the  daughter 
of  Maria  Teresa,  the  servile  condition  to  which  she  had 
been  reduced  by  want  in  infancy,  and  on  which  she  now 
prided  herself.  She  resembled  a  slave  of  old,  attached  to 
a  crowned  mistress  by  the  charm  of  royalty.  All  the  po 
litical  passions  and  fears  of  the  queen  had  instilled  them 
selves,  with  her  confidence,  into  the  bosom  of  her  favorite. 
Her  most  secret  cares  and  annoyances  were  all  participated. 
"  I  saw  her,"  says  Lady  Hamilton,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
"  in  a  paroxysm  of  phrensy,  pass  from  the  extreme  of  fear 
to  the  pinnacle  of  joy,  filling  the  palace  with  her  cries — 
laughing,  weeping,  heaving  convulsive  sobs,  throwing  her 
self  into  the  arms  of  her  husband,  pressing  her  children  in 
her  arms,  embracing  every  one  who  entered  the  room, 
speaking  to  herself  in  broken  sentences,  calling  upon  Eng 
land,  blessing  the  name  of  Nelson,  and  exclaiming  in  pas 
sionate  transports, '  Oh,  brave  Nelson,  glorious  Nelson,  the 
liberator  of  Italy,  the  hope  and  tutelary  angel  of  Naples!'" 


52  NELSON. 

Such  was  the  woman  of  irresistible  fascination,  who  at 
the  first  encounter  obtained  over  the  mind  of  Nelson  that 
fatal  and  criminal  empire  which  led  to  the  errors  and  mis 
fortunes  of  an  unrivaled  hero.  Although  Lady  Hamilton 
at  that  time  was  not  more  than  twenty-six,  and  Nelson 
possessed  few  external  recommendations  beyond  the  pre 
sage  of  future  glory  and  the  fire  of  his  soul,  which  revealed 
itself  in  his  eyes,  the  passion  with  which  each  inspired  the 
other  was  instantaneously  reciprocal.  Policy  and  pride 
suggested  to  Lady  Hamilton  the  glory  she  should  acquire 
to  herself,  and  the  service  she  should  render  to  the  cause 
of  the  queen,  by  binding  in  her  chains  the  man  who  held 
in  his  control  the  fate  of  Naples  and  the  safety  of  the  roy 
al  family.  But  policy  and  pride  in  this  case  were  only  the 
apologies  of  passion.  She  loved,  and  resigned  herself  to 
the  illusion.  The  new-born  infatuation  of  Nelson  betray 
ed  itself  involuntarily  in  his  letters  to  his  friends  in  Eng 
land  or  with  the  fleet.  In  one  of  these  he  says,  "  We  dine 
to-day  with  the  King  of  Naples,  on  board  a  man-of-war. 
He  overwhelms  me  with  compliments  and  favors.  I  often 
see  the  queen,  who  is  a  true  daughter  of  Maria  Teresa. 
On  the  opposite  side  of  the  table  on  which  I  am  tracing 
these  lines,  Lady  Hamilton  is  sitting.  You  will  therefore, 
I  hope,  fully  understand  the  glorious  confusion  of  this  let 
ter.  In  my  situation,  you  would,  perhaps,  write  even  more 
incoherently.  When  the  heart  is  affected,  the  hand  trem 
bles.  Naples  is  decidedly  a  dangerous  residence  ;  it  will 
be  well  if  we  leave  it  before  long."  "  I  live,"  says  he,  on 
another  occasion,  "  in  the  same  house  with  Lady  Hamilton  ; 
this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  my  life  passes  in  contin 
ual  enjoyment,  were  it  not  that  I  am  compelled  to  take  a 
part  in  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom ;  but  only  let  us  hang 
Baron  de  Thugut,  Cardinal  Ruffb,  and  the  minister  Man- 
fredini,  and  all  will  go  on  swimmingly."  These  were  the 
enemies  of  the  queen  and  Lady  Hamilton  at  the  court  of 
Austria.  Nelson,  influenced  by  palace  intrigues,  already 
began  to  hate  the  rival  factions  with  the  antipathy  of  his 


NELSON.  53 

idol.  In  concert  with  the  English  embassador,  and  backed 
by  the  influence  of  his  government,  he  pressed  the  King 
of  Naples  strongly  into  the  war  against  the  French  in  It 
aly.  The  rout  of  Mack,  an  Austrian  general,  to  whom  the 
command  of  the  Neapolitan  army  had  been  confided,  de 
cided  the  fate  of  the  kingdom  in  a  few  hours.  The  French 
advanced  toward  the  capital  as  liberators,  exciting  every 
where  the  Republican  spirit,  which  was  easily  roused  in 
a  country  formerly  free.  No  resource  appeared  open  to 
the  court  but  rapid  flight,  with  the  sea  for  an  asylum. 

At  this  period,  the  passion  of  Nelson  for  the  idol  he  had 
left  at  Naples  reached  its  height.  Absence,- by  concen 
trating  the  image  of  this  ill-conquering  beauty  in  his  heart, 
added  melancholy  to  his  intoxication.  The  sea,  the  soli 
tude  of  shipboard,  the  chance  of  hourly  death,  the  strong 
conviction  of  the  uncertainty  of  existence,  which  presses 
on  the  soul  greedy  for  the  enjoyment  of  happiness ;  the 
constant  presence  of  a  single  image,  undisturbed  by  the 
intrusion  of  any  other ;  ignorance  of  the  dexterity  of  wom 
en,  and  disbelief  in  their  inconstancy — all  these  causes 
combined  explain  the  insanities  of  criminal  affections  in 
warriors  of  the  sea  and  land.  They  bear  with  them  un 
changeable  impressions.  Long  campaigns  and  protracted 
voyages,  with  but  one  subject  of  regret  or  reminiscence, 
are  maladies  of  the  heart  which  augment  by  isolation,  and 
finally  overpower  reason  and  virtue  together.  In  Nelson, 
both  were  extinguished,  and  love  alone  governed  him  with 
undivided  power.  "Alas!"  he  writes  by  every  opportu 
nity  to  the  object  of  his  adoration,  "  how  desolate  and  sad 
the  deck  of  my  ship  appears  to  me,  after  the  society  I  have 
left,  to  confine  myself  to  a  solitary  cabin  on  the  wide  ocean! 
Every  place  in  the  world  has  become  hateful  to  me  except 
that  in  which  you  reside  !" 

His  most  attached  friends,  who  still  exercised  the  priv 
ilege  of  telling  him  the  truth,  reproved  him  in  vain,  both 
in  conversation  and  by  letter.  He  admitted  the  justice  of 
their  reproaches,  and  yielded  himself  up  to  his  own  re- 


54  NELSON 

morse  ;  but  his  remorse,  although  sufficiently  acute  to  em 
bitter  his  life,  possessed  not  the  energy  to  restore  him  to 
virtue.  He  even  disobeyed  on  several  occasions  the  orders 
of  his  government,  which  recalled  him  to  the  ocean  fleet, 
that  he  might  remain  in  the  Mediterranean,  near  Lady 
Hamilton,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  Naples. 

A  short  time  after  this,  Bonaparte  embarking  at  Tou 
lon  an  expeditionary  force,  on  board  the  most  formidable 
fleet  that  had  navigated  the  Mediterranean  since  the  Cru 
sades,  left  the  English  ministers  in  doubt  as  to  the  object 
he  had  in  view.  Did  he  propose  to  pass  the  Straits,  and 
attack  Great  Britain  in  one  of  her  European  islands  or  in 
the  Indies  ?  Was  it  his  intention  to  seize  Constantinople, 
and  from  thence  to  dictate  to  Russia  and  Austria,  and  to 
command  the  seas  of  Europe  1  Lord  St.  Vincent,  the  ad 
miral  in  chief  command  of  the  naval  forces  of  England  on 
the  coasts  of  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  dared  not  abandon 
the  blockade  of  Cadiz  and  the  French  ports  ;  he  therefore 
dispatched  Nelson,  as  the  bravest  and  most  skillful  of  his 
lieutenants,  to  watch,  pursue,  and,  if  possible,  destroy  the 
French  armament.  Nelson,  successively  re-enforced  by 
sixteen  sail  of  the  line,  hoisted  his  flag  in  the  Vanguard, 
and  hastened  after  the  enemy  without  any  certain  indica 
tion  of  their  course.  After  touching  at  Corsica,  already 
left  behind  by  Bonaparte,  and  examining  the  Spanish  seas, 
he  returned  to  Naples  on  the  16th  of  January,  1798,  dis 
couraged  by  a  fruitless  search,  and  in  want  of  stores  and 
ammunition.  While  there,  the  reports  of  the  English  con 
suls  in  Sicily  apprised  him  of  the  conquest  of  Malta  by 
the  French,  with  the  subsequent  departure  of  the  fleet  as 
soon  as  that  island  was  reduced,  and  directed  his  thoughts 
toward  Egypt. 

The  intrigues  of  Lady  Hamilton,  animated  by  her  double 
attachment  to  the  queen  and  to  Nelson,  obtained  from  the 
court  of  Naples,  notwithstanding  their  avowed  neutrality, 
all  the  supplies  necessary  for  the  English  squadron  before 
they  resumed  their  dangerous  cruise.  In  a  few  days  Nel- 


NELSON.  55 

son  was  ready  to  put  to  sea :  he  touched  at  Sardinia, 
coasted  the  shores  of  the  Peloponnesus,  searched  the  Le 
vant  in  its  full  extent,  dispatched  small  vessels  to  look 
into  the  road  of  Alexandria,  where  the  French  had  not 
yet  appeared,  traversed  the  Egyptian  sea,  sailed  along  one 
side  of  Candia  while  the  Republican  fleet  passed  by  on 
the  other,  came  close  to  Malta,  vainly  interrogated  every 
ship  or  boat  coming  from  the  Archipelago,  learned  that 
there  was  already  an  outcry  against  him  at  home  for  his 
dilatoriness  or  incapacity  (accusations  which  redoubled  his 
anxiety),  exclaimed  against  the  winds,  crowded  additional 
sail,  braved  continual  tempests,  and  finally,  on  the  1st  of 
August,  at  early  dawn,  discovered  the  naked  masts  of  the 
French  fleet  at  anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Aboukir,  six  leagues 
from  Alexandria,  and  close  to  the  mouth  of  the  Nile. 

Bonaparte  had  already  disembarked  the  army  and 
marched  across  the  desert  toward  Cairo.  Admiral  Brueys 
commanded  the  fleet,  which  consisted  of  seventeen  large 
men-of-war,  four  frigates,  and  a  great  number  of  lighter 
vessels.  Every  instant  he  expected  the  appearance  of  the 
English  squadron.  His  superiority  in  the  number  of  ships 
and  weight  of  metal,  in  the  equalized  quality  of  his  crews, 
would,  under  any  other  circumstances,  have  induced  him 
to  seek  an  encounter  with  Nelson  in  the  open  sea,  and 
dispute  the  sovereignty  of  the  Mediterranean.  But  naval 
battles  are  subject  to  casualties,  which  the  positive  in 
structions  of  Bonaparte  and  the  objects  of  the  expedition 
forbade  him  to  encounter.  The  French  fleet,  at  once  the 
support  and  arsenal  of  the  land  army,  constituted  the  sole 
base  of  their  operations.  The  destruction  of  this  fleet  de 
prived  them  of  their  only  means  of  communication  and 
hope  of  succor.  They  had  no  other  bridge  between 
France  and  Egypt.  To  expose  the  ships,  therefore,  to  be 
destroyed  in  open  sea,  would  be  to  betray  at  one  blow  the 
army  they  had  transported,  and  the  country  that  expected 
their  return.  Brueys,  after  fruitless  attempts  to  enter  the 
inner  harbor  of  Alexandria,  which  was  not  then  supposed 


5(5  NELSON. 

deep  enough  to  receive  vessels  of  so  much  draught  of 
water,  determined  to  moor  his  fleet  in  the  Bay  of  Aboukir, 
the  sand-banks  of  which  he  had  fortified.  Six  vessels  at 
anchor,  ranged  in  a  concave  crescent,  according  to  the 
sweep  of  the  shore,  were  supported  on  one  flank  by  the 
little  island  of  Aboukir,  a  natural  fortress  armed  with 
cannon ;  on  the  other,  by  an  advanced  arm  of  the  bay. 
They  formed  so  many  immovable  citadels,  presenting  their 
broadsides  to  the  sea.  Their  combined  force  might  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  each  single  ship  of  the  advancing 
enemy  :  unattackable  from  the  land-side,  according  to  the 
conviction  of  Brueys,  this  line  of  defense  gave  to  a  naval 
battle  the  solid  impregnability  of  a  rampart  of  fire. 

At  two  P.M.  on  the  1st  of  August,  Brueys,  apprised  by 
signal  of  the  appearance  of  Nelson  in  sight  of  the  Egyp 
tian  coast,  recalled  every  sailor  of  his  crews  on  board. 
He  ordered  two  brigs,  the  Alerte  and  Railleur,  which  drew 
little  water,  to  reconnoiter  the  English  fleet  within  cannon 
shot,  then  to  seek  refuge  in  the  bay,  over  the  shoals, 
hoping  that  the  leading  vessels  of  the  pursuing  enemy 
would  follow  their  exact  course,  and  run  aground  in  the 
mud  of  the  Nile.  But  Nelson  was  well  aware  of  these 
dangers,  and  escaped  the  snare.  Without  bestowing  any 
attention  on  the  brigs,  he  advanced  in  order  of  battle 
against  the  head  of  the  French  line,  as  to  a  direct  assault 
upon  the  centre  of  a  position.  Then  varying  a  little  from 
his  course,  without  sounding,  hesitating,  or  firing  a  shot, 
he  passed  between  the  moorings  of  ,Brueys  and  the  islet 
of  Aboukir,  in  full  sail,  with  half  his  squadron,  leaving 
only  the  Culloden  behind,  which  went  aground  on  the  sand 
banks.  As  his  ships  cleared  the  passage,  they  anchored 
successively  in  rear  of  their  opponents.  The  remaining 
half  divided,  and  ranged  up  on  the  outer  side  in  front  of 
the  French  vessels,  who  were  thus  attacked  simultaneous 
ly  on  both  flanks,  and  the  thunder  of  a  double  fire  poured 
into  their  immovable  hulls.  The  French  fleet  thus  de 
prived,  by  the  error  of  their  chief,  of  the  protection  they 


NELSON.  57 

expected  from  the  land,  and  without  the  power  of  motion 
by  being  at  anchor,  saw  at  once  the  disaster  that  awaited 
them.  Nothing  remained  but  to  perish  gloriously,  and 
to  envelop  in  their  own  destruction  as  many  of  the  ene 
my's  ships  as  possible.  They  proved  themselves  worthy 
of  their  fate.  Commanded  still  by  the  brave  warriors  of 
the  Revolution,  they  raised  themselves  to  the  level  of 
ancient  heroism,  and  presented  another  Salamis,  to  which 
nothing  was  wanting  but  the  presence  of  Themistocles ! 
The  Spartiate,  the  Franklin,  the  Orient,  the  Tonnant,  re 
sponding  on  the  right  and  left  to  the  double  broadsides 
of  the  English  seventy-fours,  strewed  the  decks  of  Nelson 
with  shattered  masts  and  yards,  with  dead  and  wounded 
sailors.  Victory  was  less  the  prize  of  naval  superiority 
than  the  consequence  of  the  fatal  mistake  of  engaging  at 
anchor.  The  French  marine  never  conquered  more  glo 
riously  than  they  now  submitted.  Every  single  ship  be 
came  a  Thermopylae,  for  the  combatants  fought  no  longer 
for  victory,  but  for  death.  On  every  deck,  the  captains, 
the  officers,  the  gunners  fell  successively  at  their  posts, 
and  left  nothing  to  the  English  but  lifeless  bodies  and 
enormous  funeral  piles.  Admiral  Brueys,  severely  wound 
ed  by  an  early  discharge  of  grape-shot,  remained  erect  on 
the  poop  of  his  flag-ship,  the  Orient,  surrounded  by  the 
remains  of  his  staff,  and  invoking  death  to  cover  his  mis 
fortune.  A  cannon  ball  from  the  Vanguard  cut  him  in 
two  ;  still  with  his  dying  hands  he  opposed  the  action  of 
those  who  would  have  carried  him  below.  "  No  !  no  !" 
exclaimed  he ;  "a  French  admiral  ought  to  die  upon  his 
quarter-deck."  His  flag-captain,  Casa-Bianca,  fell  a  mo 
ment  after  on  the  body  of  his  chief.  The  Orient,  deprived 
pf  her  commander,  still  fought  as  if  of  her  own  accord. 
Nelson  fell,  wounded  in  the  head  by  a  splinter  ;  the  blood 
covered  his  face,  and  the  skin  of  his  forehead  falling  over 
his  remaining  eye,  plunged  him  in  total  darkness,  which 
for  a  moment  he  conceived  to  be  the  harbinger  of  death. 
Confident  of  the  victory,  but  believing  his  hurt  to  be 
C2 


58  NELSON. 

mortal,  he  summoned  the  chaplain  of  the  Vanguard,  and 
charged  him  to  deliver  his  last  remembrances  to  his  family. 
A  moment  of  terrible  and  anxious  silence  pervaded  the  ship 
while  the  surgeon  probed  the  wound.  A  cry  of  joy  burst 
from  every  mouth  when  they  declared  that  it  was  only  su 
perficial,  and  that  the  conqueror  would  be  preserved  to  his 
country.  Night  had  fallen  for  about  three  hours,  but  was 
unheeded  in  the  fury  of  the  combat  and  the  reflected  light 
of  the  cannonading.  The  French  ships  were  silenced,  one 
by  one,  for  want  of  hands  to  man  the  guns.  They  drifted 
from  their  cables  toward  the  shore,  or  foundered  on  the 
rocks.  The  Orient,  in  names  above,  still  fired  from  her 
lower  decks,  ready  to  be  consumed  in  the  impending  con 
flagration,  hastened  and  excited  by  the  freshening  breeze. 
The  English  ships  ceased  to  respond,  and  retired  to  a  dis 
tance  to  escape  the  vortex  of  the  inevitable  explosion. 
Captain  Dupetit-Thouars,  commanding  the  Tonnant,  never 
slackened  his  fire  for  a  moment  at  sight  of  this  disaster. 
He  no  longer  fought  for  glory  or  life,  but  for  immortality. 
One  arm  carried  off  by  a  cannon  shot,  and  both  legs  broken 
by  grape,  he  called  upon  his  crew  to  swear  never  to  strike 
his  flag,  and  to  throw  his  body  overboard,  that  even  his 
remains  might  not  become  captive  to  the  English.  The 
Tonnant,  as  well  as  the  Franklin,  covered  with  the  bodies 
of  their  officers,  became,  in  a  short  time,  little  better  than 
floating  corpses. 

The  increasing  flames  of  the  Orient  served  to  light  the 
entire  bay,  covered  with  the  relics  of  battle.  The  sailors 
of  this  vessel  flung  themselves  from  the  port-holes  into  the 
sea,  and  clung  to  broken  masts  and  yards,  in  the  hope  of 
floating  on  shore.  They  implored  their  commandant,  Casa- 
Bianca,  who  was  covered  with  wounds,  to  allow  them  to 
save  him.  Whether  he  was  unable  to  move  his  shattered 
limbs,  or  was  stoically  determined  not  to  survive  the  loss 
of  his  ship,  Casa-Bianca  rejected  their  entreaties.  They 
wished  at  least  to  preserve  his  son,  a  noble  youth  of  twelve 
years  old,  who  had  been  induced,  by  affection  for  his  father, 


NELSON. 


59 


to  embark  with  him.  The  brave  boy,  embracing  the  body 
of  his  parent,  resisted  their  prayers  and  efforts,  and  prefer 
red  death  in  the  arms  of  him  who  had  given  him  life. 

The  catastrophe,  which  now  approached  rapidly,  com 
pelled  the  generous  sailors  to  leave  the  melancholy  group. 
The  Orient  blew  up  at  eleven  o'clock,  with  an  explosion 
which  made  the  land  of  Egypt  tremble  to  Rosetta,  and  with 
a  burst  of  flame  that  long  illuminated  the  surrounding  hor 
izon.  Her  masts,  spars,  rigging,  timbers,  and  cannon,  fell 
down  in  a  storm  of  fire  into  the  bay,  like  fragments  from 
heaven,  bursting  in  a  counter-blow  among  the  human  com 
batants.  The  rising  sun  discovered  nothing  in  the  Bay  of 
Aboukir  but  the  hulls  of  stranded  or  burning  vessels  scat 
tered  at  the  mercy  of  the  heaving  swell.  The  fleet  of  Nel 
son  himself,  dismasted,  and  almost  without  sails,  could  with 
difficulty  move  away  from  the  scene  of  action.  Two  of  his 
ships,  which  had  sustained  little  damage,  secured  the  spoils 
of  the  night.  Several  French  captains  ran  their  vessels 
ashore  and  burned  them,  to  prevent  their  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  conquerors.  The  French  army,  from  that  mo 
ment,  became  prisoners  in  the  Egypt  they  had  conquered. 
The  subsequent  capitulation  of  that  army  may  be  consid 
ered  the  second  victory  of  Nelson.  Fortune  refused  to  give 
all  to  a  single  nation.  To  one  she  assigned  the  land,  to 
the  other  the  sea. 

This  victory  of  Nelson  is  admitted  by  the  French  histo 
rians  who  witnessed  it  to  have  been  the  most  complete 
that  had  ever  been  won  at  sea  since  the  invention  of  gun 
powder.  He  was  indebted  to  it  for  his  bold  attack,  and 
the  immobility  of  the  fleet  of  Brueys.  The  heroic  defense 
of  that  fleet  at  anchor  shows  how  they  would  have  fought 
had  they  been  under  sail.  They  were  not  beaten,  but  im 
molated  ;  in  their  sacrifice  they  bore  with  them  thousands 
of  their  enemies,  and  obtained  for  the  French  navy  re 
spect  equivalent  to  the  glory  of  victory. 

Nelson,  after  returning  thanks  to  the  God  of  battles,  oc 
cupied  eighteen  days  in  the  repairs  of  his  squadron  before 


60  NELSON. 

he  wa«  ready  to  put  to  sea.  Fast-sailing  vessels  carried 
home  intelligence  of  the  triumph.  Scarcely  cured  of  his 
wound,  he  returned  to  Naples  to  enjoy  his  victory  in  the 
delirium  of  love.  The  royal  family,  restored  to  confi 
dence,  received  him  in  the  bay  as  a  savior,  and  conducted 
him  in  joyful  procession  to  the  palace.  Lady  Hamilton, 
overpowered  by  emotion,  fainted  in  the  boat,  and  was  car 
ried  inanimate  to  his  feet.  She  speedily  advocated  the  de 
parture  of  the  court  with  all  the  ascendency  she  possess 
ed  over  the  mind  of  Nelson.  The  French  were  approach 
ing,  the  royal  family  contemplated  flight,  and  the  popu 
lace  watched  their  movements  narrowly. 

The  position  of  Lady  Hamilton  as  an  embassador's  wife, 
and  her  close  intimacy  with  the  queen,  enabled  her  to  act 
as  an  active  negotiator  between  the  fleet  and  the  palace, 
without  exciting  public  suspicion  as  to  the  intended  de 
parture.  By  means  of  an  unknown  subterranean  passage 
which  communicated  between  the  palace  and  the  shore, 
she  contrived,  under  the  shelter  of  darkness,  to  convey  on 
board  the  English  ships  the  treasure,  crown  diamonds,  and 
most  precious  specimens  of  art  and  luxury,  amounting  in 
value  to  eighty  millions  of  livres.  Nelson  himself,  ap 
proaching  the  mouth  of  this  outlet  with  three  large  boats, 
embarked  during  the  stormy  night  of  the  21st  of  Decem 
ber  the  royal  family,  the  ministers,  with  Sir  William  and 
Lady  Hamilton,  and  carried  them  in  safety,  despite  the 
fury  of  the  waves,  to  his  own  flag-ship,  the  Vanguard. 

A  violent  tempest,  which  lasted  three  days,  during  the 
voyage  from  Naples  to  Sicily,  threatened  to  ingulf  the  un 
happy  fugitives,  to  whom  the  land  and  sea  appeared  equal 
ly  to  refuse  an  asylum.  Lady  Hamilton,  as  fearless  in  this 
peril  as  Nelson  himself,  devoted  her  attention  to  her  friend 
the  queen,  and  her  family,  with  the  self-denial  of  a  slave 
for  her  mistress.  The  youngest  of  the  children,  exhaust 
ed  by  fatigue  arid  terror,  expired  in  her  arms.  Three  days 
afterward  the  royal  parents  disembarked  at  Palermo  with 
the  body  of  their  infant. 


NELSON.  gj 

The  Republic  was  proclaimed  throughout  the  kingdom, 
and  resounded  across  the  Straits  even  to  Messina.  The 
Cardinal  Ruffb  alone,  a  soldier-priest,  an  Italian  Charette 
under  the  pontifical  garb,  converted  Calabria  into  a  sec 
ond  La  Vende'e ;  and  raising  a  band  of  40,000  men,  in 
the  name  of  their  threatened  religion  and  proscribed 
monarch,  marched  slowly  toward  Naples,  in  the  hope  of 
producing  a  counter-revolution.  Nelson  from  Palermo 
watched  these  movements  excited  by  the  queen,  and 
waited  impatiently  for  the  hour  of  return  and  restoration. 
The  favors  of  the  king  and  queen,  and  the  love  of  Lady 
Hamilton,  in  that  voluptuous  court  and  enervating  climate, 
neither  diminished  his  ardor  for  action  nor  silenced  his  re 
morse.  A  tone  of  melancholy  and  diminished  confidence 
in  himself  revealed  the  state  of  his  mind,  in  his  corre 
spondence  from  Palermo.  "I  live,"  he  wrote,  "in  the 
palace  of  Lady  Hamilton ;  she  is  my  counselor,  my  confi 
dante,  my  secretary,  my  sick-nurse.  My  health  is  much 
impaired,  but,  while  I  breathe,  if  the  queen  commands  it, 
I  will  remain  here  to  protect  her.  My  own  thoughts  con 
sume  and  kill  me.  Sometimes  I  have  no  wish  but  to  de 
scend  with  credit  to  the  tomb  ;  and  when  it  pleases  God 
to  callme  there,  I  shall  welcome  death  as  a  friend.  It  is 
not  that  I  am  insensible  to  the  honors  and  rewards  which 
my  king  and  country  have  showered  upon  me,  but  I  am 
ready  to  quit  this  world  of  care,  and  envy  only  those 
whose  possessions  are  limited  to  six  feet  of  earth." 

In  the  midst  of  these  expiatory  self-reproaches,  the 
queen  and  Lady  Hamilton  had  inspired  him  with  their 
own  implacable  hatred  against  the  Republicans  of  Naples. 
We  recognize  the  tone  of  civil  war  in  his  letters  to  his 
friend,  Captain  Trowbridge,  who  commanded  the  blockad 
ing  squadron  before  Naples.  "  Let  me  soon  hear,"  writes 
he  with  savage  joy,  "  that  some  heads  have  fallen ;  noth 
ing  else  will  raise  my  spirits." 

Cardinal  Ruffo,  loudly  called  upon  by  the  40,000  lazza- 
roni  of  Naples  (a  populace  who  gloried  in  servitude,  be- 


62  NELSON. 

cause  they  were  too  abject  to  understand  liberty),  arrived 
with  his  motley  forces  at  the  gates  of  the  capital.  Nelson, 
on  hearing  this  report,  the  precursor  of  a  counter-revolti- 
tion,  recalled  the  different  squadrons  of  the  Mediterranean, 
dispersed  along  the  coasts  of  Egypt  and  Italy,  and  united 
a  force  of  eighteen  sail  near  the  island  of  Maritime,  on 
the  eastern  side  of  Sicily.  Lady  Hamilton  embarked  with 
him  for  the  Bay  of  Naples,  to  prepare  the  way  for  her 
friend  the  queen,  and  to  anticipate  her  vengeance.  Nel 
son,  on  approaching  Naples,  found  the  capital  already  sub 
dued,  and  occupied  by  the  army  of  Cardinal  Ruffo.  The 
Republican  leaders,  shut  up  in  the  forts,  had  agreed  to 
surrender  on  terms  which  secured  to  them  their  lives  and 
the  liberty  of  quitting  the  kingdom.  The  English  captain, 
Foote,  who  commanded  the  blockade  in  the  absence  of 
Nelson,  signed  this  capitulation  at  the  request  of  Ruffo. 
Nelson  entered  the  bay  with  his  whole  fleet  under  full  sail 
on  the  25th  of  June,  1799.  The  rumor  of  a  treaty,  which 
would  deprive  the  queen  of  her  expected  victims,  spread 
rapidly  through  every  ship.  Lady  Hamilton  refused  to 
believe  it.  Standing  by  Nelson's  side  on  the  deck  of  the 
Foudroyant,  the  sight  of  a  flag  of  truce  floating  on  the 
castles  removed  her  doubts.  "Nelson!"  she  exclaimed, 
indignantly,  pointing  to  the  unwelcome  signal,  "  make 
them  lower  that  flag  immediately — no  capitulation  with 
rebels."  Nelson,  enslaved  by  love,  obeyed  her  angry 
suggestion.  The  generalissimo,  Ruflb,  less  animated  by 
personal  feeling  in  a  civil  war  than  a  foreign  admiral, 
nobly  refused  to  violate  his  pledged  word.  Summoned 
on  board  the  Foudroyant,  to  receive  from  the  lips  of  Lady 
Hamilton,  as  her  accredited  organ,  the  absolute  commands 
of  the  queen,  he  pleaded  with  energy  the  cause  of  her 
conquered  and  pardoned  enemies.  He  declared  to  Nelson 
and  his  accomplice  that,  if  the  lives  and  liberties  of  the 
Republican  chiefs  were  not  respected,  he  would  with 
draw  his  troops  from  Naples,  rather  than  stain  hia  arms, 
even  in  the  cause  of  God  and  his  kin^r,  with  the  murder 


NELSON.  63 

of  defenseless  fellow-citizens.  Lady  Hamilton,  in  the 
queen's  name,  assumed  all  responsibility,  and  Nelson  sub 
mitted,  thereby  compromising  his  own  fame  and  the  char 
acter  of  his  country.  The  capitulation  signed  by  Captain 
Foote  was  taken  out  of  his  hands,  torn,  and  cast  into  the 
sea.  The  Republicans,  shut  up  in  the  forts,  comprising 
in  their  ranks  nearly  all  the  young  nobility  of  Naples,  all 
that  the  city  contained  of  eminence  in  religion,  literature, 
or  the  fine  arts,  to  the  number  of  6000,  were  surrendered 
to  the  mercy  of  military  commissioners,  or  abandoned  to 
the  poniards  of  the  populace.  Judicial  sentences  and 
cold-blooded  massacres  imbrued  with  blood  the  translu 
cent  waters  of  the  bay.  Those  who  escaped  the  gibbet 
perished  by  the  knife,  and  were  cast  indiscriminately  to 
the  waves.  Licensed  cut-throats  and  delators,  revived 
from  the  days  of  Tiberius,  gave  the  form  of  justice  to 
these  legalized  assassinations.  Forty  thousand  citizens 
fell  under  the  sentences  which  opened  a  channel  of  blood 
to  usher  in  the  return  of  the  king  and  his  implacable 
helpmate.  Perambulatory  tribunals  traversed  the  prov 
inces,  attended  by  executioners.  Living  men,  seized  by 
the  lazzaroni,  were  thrown  upon  flaming  piles  erected  in 
the  palace  and  square,  and  within  sound  of  the  cannon  of 
the  fleet,  which  announced  with  loud  salutes  the  return 
of  the  royal  family.  The  queen  had  previously  forwarded 
proscription  lists  from  Palermo,  containing  the  names  of 
those  destined  to  her  vengeance.  Thirty  thousand  cap 
tives  encumbered  the  prisons,  where  torture  extracted 
from  them  the  avowal  of  political  crimes  and  conspiracies. 
The  state  councils  furnished  every  day  a  fresh  contingent 
of  victims  to  the  scaffold.  The  most  illustrious  names  in 
the  kingdom,  whether  distinguished  by  family,  services, 
or  genius,  such  as  Cirillo,  Mentone,  Conforti,  Fiano,  Albo- 
nese,  Fiorentino,  Pagano,  the  Bishop  Sarno,  the  Prelate 
Natale,  the  Marchioness  San-Felice,  the  Poetess  Eleonora 
Pimentelli,  and  300  other  victims,  were  hung,  and  thrown 
into  the  sea  after  execution  as  their  only  burial-vault. 


64  NELSON. 

The  Princes  Torella  and  Riario,  the  Baron  Poerio,  a  pop 
ular  and  mod&rate  orator,  the  Marquis  Carleto,  the  Cava 
lier  Abamonti,  banished  to  the  deserted  island  of  Faiig- 
nana,  near  the  rocks  of  Sicily,  were  shut  up  in  a  subter 
ranean  cavern,  which  had  formerly  supplied  an  anticipa 
ted  tomb  to  the  exiled  Romans.  Serra  and  Riario,  youth 
ful  scions  of  two  of  the  noblest  families,  were  sentenced 
as  criminals  before  they  had  attained  the  age  of  crime. 
The  head  of  a  boy  of  sixteen,  the  only  son  of  the  Marquis 
Genzano,  whose  innocence  and  beauty  excited  universal 
admiration  and  pity,  fell  beneath  the  axe  of  the  execu 
tioner.  His  father,  the  Brutus  of  baseness,  courted  an  in 
famous  collusion  with  the  profaners  of  his  own  blood,  and 
invited  the  judges,  a  few  days  after  the  execution,  to  a 
congratulatory  feast.  A  young  lady  of  the  highest  class 
of  nobility,  condemned  to  the  scaffold  for  having  (from 
love  of  one  of  the  Republican  leaders  whose  life  was 
threatened)  revealed  a  conspiracy  against  the  government, 
had  declared,  on  the  evening  before  her  appointed  execu 
tion,  that  she  would  shortly  become  a  mother.  The  court, 
setting  aside  all  scruples  of  modesty,  directed  the  royal 
physicians  to  ascertain  by  personal  examination  the  truth 
of  her  assertion.  The  sentence  was  suspended  on  their 
report.  Carried  on  board  ship,  and  plunged  into  a  dun 
geon  at  Palermo,  the  same  day  which  gave  birth  to  the 
infant  terminated  the  life  of  the  parent.  The  proscrip 
tions  of  Marius,  Sylla,  Tiberius,  and  the  National  Conven 
tion  of  France  were  rivaled  by  the  personal  hatred  of  an 
Italian  court,  seconded  by  a  fanatical  populace,  and  pro 
tected  by  an  English  admiral  under  the  fascination  of  a 
courtesan. 

Nelson  did  not  even  preserve  his  own  ship  from  the 
stain  of  blood  under  this  royal  "  reign  of  terror."  The  Nea 
politan  admiral,  Caraccioli,  formerly  his  comrade  in  arms 
in  the  combined  operations  of  the  two  fleets,  had  attend 
ed  the  king  to  Sicily  as  a  faithful  adherent.  After  the 
revolution  was  accomplished,  he  returned  to  Naples,  to 


NELSON. 


65 


preserve  his  estates  from  confiscation,  with  the  full  per 
mission  of  his  sovereign.  Raised  against  his  own  desire 
by  the  new  government  to  the  command-in-chief  of  the 
naval  forces,  as  a  tribute  to  his  reputation  and  acknowl 
edged  ability,  he  had  been  guilty  of  serving  his  country 
during  the  interregnum.  His  numerous  friends,  foresee 
ing  the  vengeance  of  the  queen,  had  assisted  him  to  es 
cape  from  the*forts,  during  the  negotiations  for  surrender, 
in  the  dress  of  a  Calabrian  peasant.  Arrested,  examined, 
recognized,  and  carried  back  to  Naples  with  his  hands 
bound  behind  his  back,  he  was  delivered  up,  on  the  order 
of  Nelson,  to  the  English  squadron.  It  was  universally 
believed  that  the  apparent  imprisonment  of  the  unfortu 
nate  Caraccioli  was  hospitality  in  disguise,  and  that  no 
punishment  could  reach  the  guest  of  Great  Britain.  But 
Lady  Hamilton  had  resolved  to  convert  an  English  man- 
of-war  into  a  scaffold  for  the  most  illustrious  of  the  Nea 
politans.  Nelson  received  Caraccioli  on  board  the  Fou- 
droyant,  at  that  time  the  residence  of  himself  and  his  mis 
tress.  A  court-martial  assembled  there  by  his  orders,  of 
which  Count  Thurn  was  appointed  president.  Caraccioli 
appeared  before  his  judges  :  he  asked  permission  to  pro 
duce  justificatory  documents  and  evidences  of  his  conduct 
during  the  interregnum.  The  court  considered  the  de 
mand  just,  and  referred  it  to  Nelson,  who  directed  them 
to  proceed  to  sentence  without  delay.  They  obeyed,  and 
condemned  the  prisoner  to  perpetual  banishment.  Nel 
son,  when  the  result  was  communicated  to  him,  peremp 
torily  ordered  the  word  exile  to  be  erased,  and  substituted 
death.  An  hour  afterward,  the  wretched  victim,  bound 
with  cords,  was  conveyed  in  a  boat  on  board  his  own  flag 
ship,  the  Minerva,  to  undergo  the  punishment  of  a  com 
mon  malefactor.  Lady  Hamilton,  shut  up  with  Nelson  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Foudroyant,  refused  to  see  all  intercessors, 
who,  reckoning  on  female  influence,  had  implored  her 
compassion.  Nelson  himself  remained  obstinately  deaf 
to  the  suggestions  of  his  officers.  The  court  demanded 


66  NELSON. 

the  blood  of  Caraccioli,  and  love  repaid  him  for  abetting 
in  the  crime. 

Arrived  on  board  the  Minerva,  which  was  anchored 
alongside  the  Foudroyant,  Caraccioli  prepared  for  death 
without  losing  courage  :  he  complained  only  of  the  igno 
miny  of  his  punishment.  "  I  am  an  old  man,"  he  said  to 
the  officer  under  whose  charge  he  was  placed  ;  "  my  gray 
hairs  tell  me  that  in  the  course  of  nature  I  shall  soon 
terminate  my  career ;  I  leave  neither  widow  nor  orphans 
to  mourn  my  loss ;  I  do  not  object  to  death  ;  but,  after 
seventy-two  years  of  honorable  life,  it  is  hard  to  have  the 
disgrace  of  the  gibbet  attached  to  my  memory.  Entreat 
the  English  admiral,  formerly  my  friend  and  companion 
in  arms,  to  permit  me  to  be  shot  instead  of  undergoing 
the  infamy  of  being  hanged." 

The  English  officer  to  whom  he  addressed  this  appeal 
ordered  the  execution  to  be  suspended  until  he  could  re 
port  to  Nelson,  who  remained  closely  shut  up  in  his  cabin. 
"  Do  your  duty,  sir,"  replied  the  admiral,  sternly,  and 
turned  away  to  avoid  farther  remonstrance.  Caraccioli, 
hoisted  by  the  neck  to  the  main  yard-arm  of  the  Minerva, 
suffered  the  punishment  of  the  most  infamous  criminal, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  some,  the  regret  of  others,  and  to  the 
indelible  disgrace  of  all  concerned,  and,  above  all,  to  the 
injury  of  Nelson's  fame.  Lady  Hamilton,  it  has  been 
said,  mounted  on  the  poop  of  the  Foudroyant  to  contem 
plate  the  corpse  of  this  victim  of  the  queen,  which  re 
mained  suspended  until  nightfall  on  its  floating  gibbet. 
When  darkness  had  enveloped  the  fleet,  two  heavy  cross 
bar  shot  were  attached  to  the  feet  of  the  body,  which  was 
then  thrown  into  the  sea.  But  the  sea  rejected  the  offer 
ing.  Three  days  afterward,  King  Ferdinand  returned 
from  Palermo,  and  entered  the  Bay  of  Naples  on  board 
an  English  man-of-war  commanded  by  Captain  Hardy. 
Standing  on  the  quarter-deck,  he  read  the  sentences  of 
death  and  proscription  which  the  queen  his  wife  intended 
to  carry  into  effect  before  he  landed,  that  the  feet  of  her 


NELSON. 


67 


husband  might  he  hathed  in  the  blood  of  the  condemned. 
Lady  Hamilton,  who  had  preceded  her  friend,  to  convey 
the  earliest  intelligence  of  her  proceedings,  stood  near  the 
king  with  Nelson,  and  a  crowd  of  obsequious  courtiers 
attended  the  queen.  The  sea  was  agitated,  and  high 
waves  gathered  round  the  stern  of  the  vessel.  Suddenly 
the  form  of  an  aged  man,  visible  to  the  waist,  rose  erect 
above  the  water,  with  disheveled  and  dripping  hair,  and 
appeared  to  be  following  the  ship.  An  exclamation  of 
horror  burst  forth  from  all  the  beholders.  The  king  looked 
over  the  side,  and  recognized  the  features  of  his  admiral. 
"  What  does  the  dead  require  of  us  ?"  said  he,  addressing 
his  confessor,  who  stood  behind  him. 

"  It  seems,"  answered  the  monk,  "  as  if  God  had  per 
mitted  him  to  return  and  demand  Christian  sepulture." 

"  Let  it  be  so,"  replied  the  king,  as  he  retired  from  the 
deck  in  consternation,  while  the  English  sailors  extricated 
the  corpse  from  the  sea  and  carried  it  ashore,  to  be  inter 
red  in  the  small  fisherman's  church  of  Santa  Lucia,  on  the 
quay  of  Naples.  The  storm  had  broken  the  cords  which 
attached  the  cannon-balls  to  the  feet  of  Caraccioli,  and 
the  body,  swelled  with  water,  had  spontaneously  risen  to 
the  surface.  By  a  sort  of  natural  miracle,  divine  wrath 
appeared  thus  to  chastise  and  condemn  political  ven 
geance. 

The  disgraceful  services  rendered  to  the  court  of  Naples 
at  this  crisis  by  Lady  Hamilton  and  Nelson  were  liberal 
ly  rewarded.  Lady  Hamilton  received  unlimited  honors 
and  presents  from  the  queen.  When  Nelson  carried  the 
king  back  to  Sicily,  where  the  affairs  of  that  kingdom  re 
quired  his  presence,  after  the  restoration  of  his  power  in 
Naples,  a  temple  of  glory  was  erected  in  the  royal  palace 
of  Palermo,  decorated  with  all  the  emblems  of  triumph. 
As  he  entered  the  building,  Nelson,  received  in  full  state 
by  the  king  and  queen,  their  family,  and  Lady  Hamilton, 
was  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  laurel  by  the  hands  of  the 
young  princes.  The  king  presented  him  a  sword  enrich- 


68  NELSON. 

ed  with  diamonds,  and  created  him  Duke  of  Bronte  (or 
Duke  of  Thunder),  with  a  revenue  proportionate  to  the 
rank  and  value  of  the  duchy.  The  ablest  sculptors  of 
Italy  were  employed  to  execute  his  statute  in  marble,  and 
to  commemorate  his  great  deeds  by  a  rostral  column.  But 
neither  this  accumulated  glory,  fortune,  nor  enjoyment 
could  suffice  to  blot  out  the  shame,  or  stifle  the  remorse 
of  a  hero,  who,  through  an  unscrupulous  favorite,  had  sold 
himself  as  a  tool  to  the  passions  of  a  sanguinary  and  cor 
rupted  court. 

On  his  return  to  England  with  Lady  Hamilton,  he  re 
ceived  the  congratulations  due  to  his  services  at  Aboukir 
and  Naples.  All  the  ships  in  the  Thames  dressed  them 
selves  in  the  gayest  colors  on  the  report  of  his  arrival. 
The  government,  and  the  corporation  of  London,  bestowed 
on  him  addresses  of  thanks  and  presents  of  honor  as  to 
the  savior  of  his  country.  The  splendor  of  his  achieve 
ments  concealed  from  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen  the  con 
sequences  of  his  weakness.  But  neither  his  fame  nor 
popularity  satisfied  his  own  internal  feelings  ;  he  was  un 
happy  and  discontented.  Thoroughly  enslaved  by  Lady 
Hamilton,  now  a  widow,  he  separated  himself  from  his 
wife  and  adopted  son,  Joshua  Nisbet,  who  naturally  es 
poused  with  warmth  the  cause  of  his  injured  mother. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  just  in  his  infatuation,  and  thorough 
ly  acquitted  Lady  Nelson  of  the  smallest  particle  of  blame 
in  these  sad  proceedings.  "Heaven  is  my  witness,"  he 
says,  in  his  last  letter  to  her,  on  separating,  "  that  I  ac 
knowledge  you  to  be  entirely  innocent,  virtuous,  and  true." 
But  while  he  could  accord  esteem,  his  heart  was  no  longer 
in  his  power :  a  syren  restrained  him  within  the  chain  of 
her  seductions.  He  purchased  a  house  and  estate  for  her 
in  the  country,  at  Merton,  and  there  concealed  his  love, 
his  glory,  and  his  remorse.  A  daughter  was  the  fruit  of 
this  intercourse,  to  whom  he  gave  the  name  of  Horatia. 

The  northern  coalition  recalled  him  to  his  professional 
duties.  He  commanded  the  force  which  attacked  Copen- 


NELSON. 


hagen  and  destroyed  the  Danish  fleet.  This  exploit,  more 
worthy  of  a  sea  Attila  than  a  high-minded  warrior,  tar 
nished  his  reputation  in  Europe,  but  produced  a  phrensy 
of  exultation  in  London.  He  returned  home  a  conqueror 
for  the  second  time,  and  was  elevated  by  the  king  to  the 
peerage.  Great  Britain  beheld  in  Nelson  a  counterpoise 
to  Napoleon. 

In  the  mean  time  Napoleon  prosecuted  his  gigantic  duel 
against  the  independence  of  the  Continent.  As  long  as 
England  remained  free,  the  liberty  of  the  world  found  an 
asylum  and  hoped  for  an  avenger.  It  was  necessary  to 
remove  this  last  basis  for  the  lever  of  vanquished  nations, 
enslaved,  but  not  resigned  to  their  fortune,  to  assure  their 
neutrality,  their  alliance,  or  their  subjection.  Napoleon, 
after  the  victories  which  had  dazzled  Egypt,  conquered 
Italy,  intimidated  Germany,  riveted  enfeebled  Spain  to 
his  policy,  and  incorporated  Holland,  carried  the  dreams 
of  his  imagination  from  the  shores  of  Syria  to  the  strands 
of  England.  The  universal  empire  which  he  had  con 
ceived  in  idea  in  the  East  on  the  dawning  of  his  fortune, 
he  now  transferred  to  the  West.  Frustrated  under  the 
walls  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre,  and  totally  overthrown  at  Abou- 
kir  by  the  cannon  of  Nelson,  he  reindulged  this  fantasy  at 
Boulogne  in  sight  of  the  heights  of  Dover,  and,  by  a  singu 
lar  arrangement  of  destiny,  the  same  man  who  had  baf 
fled  his  schemes  on  the  coasts  of  Egypt,  again  destroyed 
them  in  the  British  Channel.  It  might  have  been  said 
at  this  moment  that  Nelson  and  Napoleon  represented  the 
two  great  antagonistic  principles  in  which  were  personi 
fied,  on  land  the  conquest  of  Europe,  on  the  sea  the  resist 
ance  of  the  Continent.  In  like  manner,  on  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  republic,  Pompey  and  Caesar,  under  their  respective 
names,  embodied  the  liberty  and  slavery  of  the  world.  In 
like  manner,  also,  the  question  of  empire  was  decided  by 
a  naval  combat,  the  battle  of  Actium.  The  loss  of  that 
day  delivered  over  the  universe  to  Caesar. 

Napoleon,  during  eighteen  months,  had  collected  along 


70  NELSON. 

the  coasts  of  the  British  Channel  the  means  of  a  descent 
on  England.  An  innumerable  flotilla  of  gun-boats,  assem 
bled  near  Boulogne,  and  ready  to  embark  the  troops  en 
camped  on  the  shore,  taking  advantage  of  a  favorable  day, 
could  throw  a  movable  bridge  across  that  arm  of  the  sea, 
and  pour  upon  the  shores  of  Britain  one  of  those  vast  ar 
mies  as  irresistible  on  land  as  the  fleets  of  England  were 
all-powerful  at  sea. 

Making  every  allowance  for  the  patriotic  ardor  of  the 
island,  which  the  genius  of  her  children  had  rendered  the 
most  astonishing  focus  of  labour,  riches,  nautical  skill,  and 
civilization  which  the  history  of  ages  presents,  when  we 
compare  her  moral  influence  with  her  geographical  extent, 
it  can  not  be  doubted  that  200,000  disciplined  French 
warriors,  animated  by  the  genius  of  the  modern  conqueror, 
would,  for  a  time  at  least,  have  subjugated  Great  Britain, 
razed  her  fortresses  to  their  foundations,  spiked  her  guns, 
burned  her  dock -yards,  and  dispersed  to  the  winds  the 
elements  of  her  wealth  and  liberty.  It  is  equally  certain 
that  England,  surprised  and  chained  down  in  her  own  ter 
ritory,  would  have  taken  refuge  in  her  ships,  whence  she 
might  have  covered  the  Channel  with  her  floating  cita 
dels,  pursued  the  gun-boats  of  Napoleon,  destroyed  them 
in  their  own  harbors,  and,  finally,  imprisoned  the  French 
army  in  the  heart  of  their  conquest.  She  would  thus  have 
compelled  Napoleon  to  a  voluntary  retreat,  while  she  as 
sured  for  herself  a  glorious  capitulation.  But  the  disgrace 
and  calamity  of  the  invasion  of  London  would  have  weigh 
ed  heavily  upon  her  fortunes  and  her  history ;  and  Eng 
land,  with  an  enemy  for  several  months  in  her  capital, 
must  have  sacrificed  a  heavy  ransom  of  blood,  of  iron,  and 
of  gold,  before  she  could  expect  to  reconquer  her  inde 
pendence. 

Great  Britain,  anxiously  watching  the  assemblage  of 
flat-bottomed  boats  and  French  troops,  trembled  at  the 
consequences  of  a  bold  attempt  on  the  part  of  Napoleon, 
of  an  act  of  imprudence  in  her  own  admirals,  or  of  the  ac- 


NELSON.  71 

cident  of  a  calm  or  tempest,  which  her  enemies  might  turn 
to  advantage  on  the  moment.     Her  squadrons  command 
ed  the  Channel,  and  sufficiently  interrupted  the  passage 
of  the  French  transports — mere  nut-shells,  according  to 
the  contemptuous  expression  of  the  English  sailors,  of 
which  a  single  frigate  could  run  down  and  sink  a  whole 
flotilla.     Thus  the  plan  of  Napoleon  was  not  to  risk  these 
light  vessels  upon  the  sea  until  he  had  collected  from  the 
different  ports  of  Holland,  France,  and  Spain  a  formidable 
fleet  of  fifty  or  sixty  men-of-war — a  new  Armada,  which 
should  suddenly  pour  into  the  Channel,  give  battle  to  the 
English,  and,  either  victorious  or  defeated,  cover  by  this 
diversion  the  passage  of  his  army  from  Boulogne  to  Dover. 
But  these  ships,  shut  in  by  the  superior  blockading  squad 
ron  of  the  enemy,  some  in  the  Scheldt,  others  at  Brest, 
Toulon,  and  Cadiz,  could  only  assemble  together  in  equal 
or  greater  force  to  their  opponents  by  stratagem,  or  by  a 
happy  combination  of  skill  and  good  fortune  on  the  part 
of  the  commanding  admirals.     None   of  these  officers, 
either  in  France,  Holland,  or  Spain,  possessed  the  genius 
to  conceive,  or  the  daring  to  execute,  the  bold  manoeuvres 
which  laugh  at  impossibility,  and  which  alone  could  keep 
pace  with  the  impatience  and  enthusiasm  of  their  leader. 
Brave  in  heart,  but  timid  in  mind,  all  bowed  under  the 
weight  of  the  responsibility  they  were  called  upon  to  en 
counter.    A  battle  on  shore  requires  only  heroism ;  a  com 
bat  at  sea  demands  courage  blended  with  science.     An 
army  defeated  or  broken,  rallies,  fills  up  its  ranks  again, 
and  re-forms  in  order ;  a  squadron  sunk  or  burned  ingulfs 
the  crew  with  the  ships,  and  is  seen  no  more,  except  in 
broken  fragments  floating  on  the  waves.    The  movements 
of  an  armament  which,  on  the  field  of  battle,  are  regulated 
by  the  eye  and  voice  of  the  chief,  on  the  ocean  are  con 
trolled  by  winds,  distances,  sailors,  calms,  and  tempests, 
which  no  single  genius  can  foresee  or  regulate.     These 
distinctions  between  the  nature  of  the  two  services  ren 
dered  Napoleon  as  unjust  to  his  admirals  as  he  was  re- 


72  NELSON. 

bellious  against  the  laws  of  nature.  He  blamed  his  offi 
cers  for  the  difficulties  peculiar  to  naval  science,  and  for 
the  opposition  of  the  elements.  Disbelieving  for  the  mo 
ment  the  possibility  of  uniting  his  divided  ships  in  one 
single  fleet  in  the  British  Channel,  he  next  conceived  the 
idea  of  dispatching  from  Toulon  and  Brest  two  separate 
squadrons  of  sixty  sail,  with  an  army  of  40,000  men  on 
board.  They  were  to  reach  by  different  courses  the  In 
dian  Ocean,  and  thus  to  strike  at  the  power  of  England  in 
the  extreme  East,  while  he  waited  an  opportunity  of  in 
flicting  a  deadly  blow  nearer  her  heart  at  home.  These 
squadrons,  he  calculated,  would  entice  after  them  the 
whole  English  fleet,  and  while  they  were  hastening  to  the 
relief  of  India,  the  Channel,  less  closely  guarded,  might 
possibly  afford  a  free  passage  to  his  invading  army. 

The  vast  extent  and  inevitable  delays  of  this  plan  ex 
hausted  his  patience.  He  then  adopted  another,  less  com 
prehensive,  but  more  rapid  of  execution,  which  promised 
the  same  result  of  assembling  his  ships  of  war  in  one  com 
bined  mass  at  a  distant  point  of  the  ocean,  and  of  calling 
off  the  body  of  the  English  fleet  beyond  the  Channel,  from 
whence,  at  every  hazard,  he  was  most  desirous  to  remove 
them.  By  his  orders,  Admiral  Villeneuve,  who  was  in 
tended  for  the  chief  command,  sailed  from  Toulon  with 
thirteen  sail  of  the  line  and  several  frigates.  Uniting 
himself  with  the  Spanish  squadron  at  Cadiz,  under  Ad 
miral  Gravina,  he  crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  at  the  Antilles 
was  further  re-enforced  by  Admiral  Missiessy  with  six 
additional  men-of-war.  Admiral  Gantheaume,  who  com 
manded  at  Brest,  was  instructed  to  take  advantage  of  the 
first  gale  of  wind  which  might  drive  the  English  admiral 
Cornwallis  from  his  cruising  ground,  and  then  to  join  Vil 
leneuve,  Gravina,  and  Missiessy  at  Martinique.  The  fleet 
thus  united  under  the  orders  of  Villeneuve,  after  having 
alarmed  the  English  for  the  safety  of  their  West  Indian 
islands,  were  to  set  all  sail  toward  France,  at  the  moment 
when  the  English  squadrons  would  be  detached  and  dis- 


NELSON.  73 

persed  in  their  pursuit  ;•  to  give  them  battle  on  the  coasts 
of  Europe,  and,  either  defeated  or  victorious,  to  throw 
themselves  into  the  Channel,  and  assist  in  the  invasion 
of  England.  This  plan,  successfully  carried  into  execu 
tion  by  Villeneuve  in  the  month  of  June,  1805,  was  ren 
dered  incomplete  by  the  inaction  of  Gantheaume,  who 
found  himself  unable  to  leave  the  roads  of  Brest,  in  con 
sequence  of  a  long  succession  of  calms.  Villeneuve  re 
turned  to  the  European  seas  with  orders  to  fight  Corn- 
wallis  before  Brest,  to  release  Gantheaume  from  the  block 
ade,  to  add  that  imprisoned  portion  of  the  French  fleet  to 
his  own  force,  and  then,  with  sixty  sail  of  the  line,  to  en 
gage  the  English  in  the  mouth  of  the  Channel,  no  matter 
what  might  be  their  superiority  in  the  number  of  shipsr 
"  These  islanders,"  exclaimed  Napoleon,  in  the  confidence 
of  success,  "  know  not  what  is  hanging  over  them.  Let 
me  only  be  master  of  the  British  Channel  for  twelve  hours, 
and  England  is  extinct!" 

At  the  moment  when  he  uttered  this  joyful  cry,  antici 
pating  triumph  to  his  own  fortune  and  ruin  to  his  enemy, 
he  was  at  Boulogne.  He  saw  under  his  eyes  164,000 
tried  warriors,  who  had  subdued  the  Continent,  looking 
anxiously  toward  a  last  conquest ;  and  he  expected  from 
hour  to  hour  the  announcement  of  the  approach  of  Ville 
neuve,  and  the  sound  of  the  French  cannon  driving  before 
them  the  detached  fleet  of  Cornwallis.  Villeneuve  was 
in  fact  on  his  return.  Nelson,  at  the  head  of  only  eleven 
men-of-war,  sought  him  boldly  on  the  wide  ocean,  as  he 
had  formerly  pursued  Napoleon  through  the  Mediterra 
nean.  Convinced  that  Villeneuve  had  sailed  back  to  Eu 
rope,  Nelson  followed  rapidly  on  his  course,  sending  be 
fore  him  a  swift-sailing  frigate  to  apprise  the  English  gov 
ernment  of  the  danger  that  menaced  their  shores.  Ville- 
neuve,  on  approaching  Ferrol,  fell  in  during  a  thick  fog 
with  the  squadron  of  Admiral  Calder,  consisting  of  twen 
ty-one  ships.  The  fleets  engaged  under  cover  of  the  mist, 
without  plan  or  prearranged  order.  Two  Spanish  men- 

VOL.  T.— D 


74  .          NELSON. 

of-war  remained  as  trophies  in  tlie  hands  of  the  English 
commander.  Villeneuve,  on  the  following  morning,  in 
stead  of  renewing  the  action  in  obedience  to  his  orders, 
entered  the  harbor  of  Ferrol,  lost  several  days  in  revict- 
ualing  his  ships,  and  received  fresh  instructions  tc  relieve 
Gantheaume,  join  him,  and  hasten  to  the  Channel  with 
every  sail  he  could  collect.  He  replied  that  he  was  pre 
paring  to  obey,  but  having  persuaded  himself  that  Nelson, 
Calder,  and  Cornwallis  had  formed  a  junction  and  were 
waiting  to  overpower  him,  he  steered  for  Cadiz  instead 
of  turning  his  prows  toward  Brest  and  Napoleon,  and 
there  shut  himself  up  in  ruinous  inactivity. 

The  hesitation  of  his  admiral  cost  Napoleon  the  decisive 
opportunity.  But  a  few  hours  remained  to  him  to  antici 
pate  the  Austrian  declaration  of  war,  and  the  general  in 
surrection  of  all  Germany,  fomented  and  paid  by  the  pa 
triotic  genius  of  Pitt,  whose  gold  and  skillful  policy  had 
preserved  his  country  for  so  many  years.  Napoleon  fully 
believed  that  Villeneuve  was  at  Brest.  "  Sail !"  he  wrote 
incessantly  to  Gantheaume,  so  long  imprisoned  in  that 
port,  "  sail,  and  hasten  hither.  In  an  hour  we  shall 
avenge  ourselves  for  six  centuries  of  inferiority  and  de 
feat.  Never  did  my  brave  soldiers  and  sailors  expose 
their  lives  for  such  a  glorious  stake  !"  "  Sail,"  he  reiter 
ated  in  the  same  style  to  Villeneuve  ;  "  sail  at  once  ;  lose 
not  a  moment ;  but  enter  the  Channel  with  all  my  squad 
rons  united  !  We  are  ready  ;  the  troops  are  embarked  ; 
sail,  and  in  four-and-twenty  hours  the  prize  is  won !" 

"We  recognize  in  these  letters  the  fever  of  his  heart  and 
his  excited  expectation.  On  the  following  day,  Napoleon 
received  intelligence  of  the  stupor  of  Yilleneuve  at  Cadiz, 
and  the  compelled  inaction  of  Gantheaume  at  Brest.  "  Vil 
leneuve,"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  burst  of  fury  which  blamed 
men  for  events,  "Villeneuve  is  unworthy  to  command  a 
single  frigate  !  He  is  blinded  by  fear."  He  denounced 
him  to  his  Minister  of  Marine  as  a  poltroon  and  traitor. 
At  such  a  moment,  and  to  a  man  of  his  temperament, 


NELSON.  75 

every  act  of  prudence  that  thwarted  his  plans  was  cow 
ardice,  every  contrariety  of  fortune  he  considered  treason. 
"  It  is  decided,"  he  wrote  to  M.  Talleyrand,  his  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  "  my  fleets  have  disappeared  from  the 
ocean.  Even  now,  if  they  hasten  at  once  to  the  Channel, 
there  is  yet  time ;  I  embark  my  army,  I  land  in  England, 
and  in  London  1  sever  the  knot  of  all  impending  coalitions. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  my  admirals  prove  themselves  incapa 
ble  and  lose  all  judgment,  I  enter  Germany  with  200,000 
men ;  I  take  Vienna,  I  drive  the  Bourbons  from  Naples  ; 
and  when  I  have  pacified  the  Continent,  I  return  once 
more  to  the  ocean,  and  complete  all  by  a  maritime  con 
quest." 

He  was  soon  relieved  from  all  uncertainty.  The  cour 
ier  who  brought  the  news  of  the  defeat  of  Villeneuve  to 
Cadiz,  found  him  on  the  shore,  gazing  on  the  coasts  of 
England,  whitening  above  the  mists  of  the  morning.  Im 
precations  of  rage  against  Villeneuve  burst  from  his  lips 
as  he  read  his  dispatches,  and  flung  them  impatiently  into 
the  sea.  Like  a  second  Xerxes,  he  could  have  chastised 
the  new  Hellespont,  which  the  pusillanimity  of  his  admi 
rals,  rather  than  the  impediments  of  nature,  prevented  him 
from  crossing.  He  ordered  his  Minister  of  Marine  to  su 
persede  the  incompetent  or  unlucky  Villeneuve,  and  pro 
mote  Admiral  Rosilly  in  his  place  ;  then,  directing  his  un 
divided  attention  toward  Austria,  he  marched  on  Ulm,  by 
various  routes,  with  an  army  of  250,000  combatants.  Vic 
tory  by  land  speedily  consoled  him  for  his  vanished  dreams 
of  conquest  on  the  ocean. 

In  the  mean  time,  Villeneuve,  dreading  the  anger  of 
Napoleon  (reports  of  which  had  reached  him,  although 
softened  by  the  delicate  consideration  of  Decre's,  the  Min 
ister  of  Marine),  was  apprehensive  of  being  dishonored  in 
the  eyes  of  his  own  fleet,  and  of  all  France,  by  a  removal 
from  his  command,  which  had  been  already  ordered,  but 
not  yet  communicated  to  him.  He  furnished  his  squad 
ron  with  fresh  supplies,  exercised  hi*  sailors  incessantly 


76  NELSON. 

at  the  guns,  and  settled  with  the  Spanish  admirals,  Gra- 
vina  and  Cisneros,  a  combined  plan  of  action,  which  united 
the  two  fleets  as  closely  as  if  they  were  under  the  same 
national  flag.  With  his  armament  thus  formed  and  train 
ed,  he  hoped  to  put  to  sea  with  superior  strength  and  equal 
discipline,  and  thus  to  reconquer  in  a  single  day  the  glory 
he  had  lost  by  months  of  incertitude.  While  his  mind 
was  balancing  between  vexation  for  the  past  and  hope  for 
the  future,  he  learned  the  sudden  arrival  of  Admiral  Ro- 
silly  at  Madrid,  preceded  by  the  general  report  that  he  was 
coming  to  assume  the  command  in  chief  of  the  two  fleets. 
He  hesitated  no  longer,  resolved  to  forestall  his  disgrace, 
and  anticipate  the  vengeance  of  Napoleon  by  a  signal  vic 
tory,  or  to  perish  in  an  honorable  defeat,  which  should  ex 
piate  misfortune  by  death.  Accordingly,  he  left  the  roads 
of  Cadiz  on  the  19th  of  October,  with  a  fleet  of  forty-two 
sail,  including  frigates,  and  steered  toward  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar,  courting  the  hazard  of  an  encounter  with  Nelson. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  hero  of  England.  We  have 
seen  that,  after  traversing  the  ocean,  and  the  widest  ex 
tent  of  the  Mediterranean,  for  two  years,  in  search  of  the 
French  fleet,  which  only  escaped  him  by  remaining  shut 
up  in  Brest  or  Cadiz,  Nelson,  who  had  never  quitted  his 
vessel  during  that  long  period,  returned  at  last  to  Ports 
mouth,  to  enjoy  a  few  months  of  repose  in  the  security 
which  he  had  attained  for  his  country.  Tired  of  victory, 
loaded  with  fortune,  satiated  with  glory,  mutilated  by 
wounds,  in  broken  health,  and  dominated  by  an  overpow 
ering  passion,  he  desired  only  to  pass  the  remaining  days 
allotted  to  him  in  the  solitude  of  the  country,  and  the  so 
ciety  of  the  woman  to  whom  he  had  devoted  himself.  He 
conveyed  his  treasures  and  all  his  property  to  his  residence 
at  Merton.  The  presence  of  Lady  Hamilton,  of  his  daugh 
ter,  and  his  sisters,  promised  him  in  his  retreat  all  the  do 
mestic  happiness  which  a  mind  agitated  by  remorse  could 
expect  to  enjoy.  * 


NELSON.  77 

He  had  not  been  settled  there  many  days,  and  was  be 
ginning  to  taste  tranquillity,  when,  one  autumnal  morning, 
before  sunrise,  an  early  visitor  knocked  at  his  gate.  Nel 
son,  according  to  his  habits  when  afloat,  which  he  contin 
ued  on  shore,  allowed  himself  but  a  few  short  and  inter 
rupted  hours  of  repose.  He  was  already  up  and  dressed. 
The  stranger  was  admitted,  and  proved  to  be  Captain  Black- 
wood,  an  officer  of  his  fleet,  and  also  the  bearer  of  dis 
patches  from  the  Admiralty.  "I  am  sure,"  exclaimed 
Nelson,  "  that  I  anticipate  what  you  are  going  to  tell  me ! 
You  bring  me  news  of  the  combined  French  and  Spanish 
squadrons,  and  I  am  still  destined  to  annihilate  them!" 
Blackwood,  in  effect,  informed  him  that  the  enemy's  fleet, 
after  touching  at  Vigo,  had  returned  to  Cadiz  to  refit. 
" 'Tis  well!"  said  the  admiral,  with  the  confidence  in 
spired  by  a  succession  of  victories  ;  "  rely  on  it,  I  shall 
give  M.  Villeneuve  a  severe  lesson!"  He  then  prepared 
immediately  to  set  out  for  London  and  offer  his  services. 
But,  foreseeing  the  grief  which  his  departure  would  occa 
sion  to  Lady  Hamilton  and  his  sisters,  he  wanted  courage 
to  tell  them  of  the  dispatches  he  had  received  while  they 
were  yet  sleeping,  and  the  resolution  he  had  formed  of 
sacrificing  his  own  repose  and  their  happiness  to  a  fresh 
pursuit  of  glory.  He  endeavored  to  direct  the  conversa 
tion  to  indifferent  subjects,  to  conceal  the  predominant 
feeling  and  depression  of  his  mind.  Lady  Hamilton,  with 
the  natural  quickness  of  affection,  discovered  the  truth. 
She  took  him  apart  into  a  retired  walk  of  the  garden, 
which  he  called  his  quarter-deck,  and  anxiously  demand 
ed  the  cause  of  his  inquietude.  "  I  have  no  anxieties," 
replied  Nelson  ;  "  the  happiness  I  enjoy  at  present  is  un 
clouded.  I  live  in  the  bosom  of  friendship,  and  am  sur 
rounded  by  my  family.  The  fresh  air  and  tranquillity  of 
the  fields  restore  my  health  daily,  and  I  look  forward  to 
many  years  of  domestic  enjoyment.  I  would  not  change 
conditions  with  the  King  of  England  !" 

Lady  Hamilton  was  far  from  being  satisfied  with  these 


78  NELSON. 

affectionate  subterfuges.  She  replied  that  she  read  his 
thoughts  more  clearly  than  he  did  himself ;  that  he  had 
received  news  of  the  combined  fleets  ;  that  he  considered 
them  as  his  lawful  property,  and  their  conquest  necessary 
to  his  fame  ;  that  he  would  devour  himself  with  jealous 
regret  if  any  other  admiral  should  accomplish  this  final 
triumph  ;  and  that  he  looked  upon  these  ships  as  the 
prize  of  two  long  years  wasted  upon  the  ocean,  and  as  the 
just  reward  of  a  painful  and  glorious  pursuit.  "  Dear 
Nelson,"  added  she,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  "  think  not  of 
what  we  shall  suffer  by  such  a  cruel  separation,  but  offer 
your  services  to  your  country  without  a  moment's  hesita 
tion  :  they  will  be  accepted  ;  you  will  recover  your  peace 
of  mind,  and,  after  a  glorious  and  decisive  victory,  you 
will  return  here,  and  enjoy  with  us  unmingled  felicity." 
Nelson  was  overcome  by  these  words  from  a  woman  who 
had  so  tenderly  penetrated  his  secret,  and  who  was  un 
willing  to  purchase  her  own  happiness  at  the  expense  of 
his  glory.  "  Good  Emma !  brave  Emma !"  he  exclaimed. 
"  If  there  were  more  Emmas,  there  would  be  many  more 
Nelsons  in  the  world !" 

On  the  same  day  he  set  out  for  London,  where  he  was 
anxiously  expected.  He  was  offered  his  choice  of  the 
ships,  the  admirals,  and  the  captains  who  were  to  compose 
the  fleet.  The  preparations  were  as  rapid  as  his  own  de 
sires.  He  became  impatient  with  every  hour  that  elapsed, 
fearing  lest  Villeneuve  might  seize  the  opportunity  of  is 
suing  from  Cadiz,  and  bend  his  course  toward  the  East 
or  West  Indies.  He  hoisted  his  admiral's  flag  on  board 
the  same  vessel  which  had  ever  brought  him  good  fortune 
during  several  years  that  it  had  been  his  only  home.  At 
the  moment  of  departure,  a  glorious  or  a  fatal  presenti 
ment  seized  upon  his  mind.  He  sent  for  the  custodian 
of  the  effects  he  had  left  in  London,  and  ordered  him  to 
engrave  his  name  and  a  short  expressive  epitaph  on  the 
coffin  constructed  from  the  main-mast  of  the  French  three- 
decker,  L'Orient,  which  Captain  Halliwell  had  presented 


NELSON  79 

to  him  after  the  victory  of  Aboukir.  "  I  may  want  it  at 
my  return,"  said  he,  with  the  accent  of  prophecy.  The 
image  of  death  was  present  to  his  imagination  ;  he  had 
no  fear  for  himself;  his  thoughts  were  entirely  engrossed 
by  Lady  Hamilton  and  his  daughter. 

We  read  the  following  entry  in  his  private  diary,  dated 
September  the  14th,  1805  :  "  At  half  past  ten,  drove  from 
dear,  dear  Merton,  where  I  left  all  which  I  hold  dear  in 
this  world,  to  go  and  serve  my  king  and  country.  May 
the  great  God,  before  whom  I  bend,  enable  me  to  fulfill 
the  expectations  of  my  country  ;  and  if  it  be  his  good 
pleasure  that  I  should  return,  my  thanks  will  never  cease 
being  offered  up  to  his  throne  of  mercy.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  his  good  providence  to  cut  short  my  days  upon 
earth,  I  bow  with  the  greatest  submission,  full  of  confi 
dence  in  the  hope  that  He  will  protect  those  so  dear  to 
me  that  I  may  leave  behind.  His  will  be  done  !  Amen  ! 
Amen  !  Amen!" 

The  weakness  of  his  heart  had  not  obscured  in  this 
truly  great  man  the  fervent  sentiment  of  piety  which  con 
stitutes  the  grandeur  of  humanity  and  the  true  basis  of 
genuine  heroism. 

His  embarkation  on  board  the  Victory,  at  Portsmouth, 
was  a  brilliant  triumph.  Thousands  of  living  beings 
formed  his  escort  to  his  vessel.  Cheers  and  sighs  swept 
across  the  waters,  mixed  with  the  roar  of  the  saluting 
cannon.  England,  greater  even  in  her  gratitude  than  in 
her  strength,  seemed  to  have  a  mingled  foreboding  of  the 
triumph  and  death  of  her  favorite  hero.  The  glory  of 
Nelson  had  penetrated  through  the  recitals  of  his  sailors 
to  the  cottages  of  the  humblest  peasants.  Every  English 
man  considered  that  to  him  he  owed  his  fireside,  his  fields, 
and  his  national  independence.  The  maimed  Themisto- 
cles  of  his  country,  every  one  thronged  to  catch  a  last 
glimpse  of  the  great  public  benefactor,  the  preserver  of 
millions.  His  guards  were  obliged  to  use  force  to  repel 
the  enthusiastic  pressure  of  the  multitude,  who  crowded 
on  his  steps  to  the  extreme  margin  of  the  shore. 


80  NELSON. 

The  different  squadrons  he  collected  on  his  passage,  and 
the  Mediterranean  fleet  of  which  he  came  to  assume  the 
command,  hailed  his  arrival,  as  the  people  of  Portsmouth 
had  greeted  his  departure,  with  phrensied  enthusiasm. 
He  carried  victory  in  his  name.  On  the  2d  of  September 
he  appeared  before  Cadiz,  and  learned  with  transports  of 
joy  that  Villeneuve  was  still  there.  He  established  his 
cruising  ground  at  a  sufficient  distance  from  the  land  to 
keep  his  forces  out  of  sight,  and  to  encourage  the  sailing 
of  the  combined  fleet  by  the  appearance  of  an  open  sea. 
While  waiting  the  approach  of  the  decisive  hour,  Nelson 
animated  his  officers  and  crews  with  emotions  of  loyalty, 
glory,  and  impatience,  in  expectation  of  the  impending 
combat.  His  orders  were  few,  his  tactics  simple  ;  they 
were  to  engage  in  two  lines,  with  an  advanced  squadron 
of  eight  ships. 

The  only  manoeuvre  recommended  to  his  captains  was 
to  cut  the  opposing  line  at  about  the  tenth  or  twelfth  sail 
from  the  admiral's  flag,  while  he  fell  upon  the  centre,  and 
the  leading  vessels  engaged  the  head.  "  But  as  the  smoke 
of  the  broadsides,"  he  added,  in  his  order  of  the  day,  "  may 
hide  the  signals  and  prevent  them  from  being  clearly  un 
derstood,  every  captain  of  a  ship  will  be  sure  to  do  right 
in  engaging  whatever  vessel  of  the  enemy  he  finds  the 
closest  to  his  own."  He  concluded  by  issuing  an  order 
that  the  name  of  every  officer,  sailor,  or  marine  killed  or 
wounded  in  the  battle,  should  be  immediately  communi 
cated  to  him,  that,  being  transmitted  without  delay  to 
England,  they  might  become  subjects  of  national  grati 
tude. 

At  daybreak  on  the  20th  of  October,  the  frigates  station 
ed  by  Nelson  between  the  coast  of  Spain  and  his  own 
position  announced  by  signal  that  the  combined  fleet  had 
issued  from  the  harbor  of  Cadiz.  From  hour  to  hour  they 
indicated  also  the  course  taken  by  the  enemy,  who  appear 
ed  undecided  whether  to  incline  toward  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar,  or  to  steer  boldly  into  the  open  sea.  Toward 


NELSON.  81 

evening,  a  heavy  gale  from  the  southwest  seemed  to  alter 
their  movements,  and  compel  them  to  tack  about,  so  as  to 
return  to  Cadiz.  Under  any  circumstances,  it  was  evident 
they  intended  to  keep  this  retreat  open  in  case  of  acci 
dents.  Nelson  passed  alternately  from  hope  to  disap 
pointment  as  the  varying  signals  were  reported  to  him. 
The  night  closed  in  uncertainty. 

Traversing  his  quarter-deck  with  the  earliest  dawn,  the 
first  signals  of  his  frigates  which  were  discernible  inform 
ed  him  that  the  combined  fleet  was  still  at  sea,  and  steer 
ing  toward  the  north.  His  anxiety  increased,  and  he 
hoisted  all  sail,  hastening  obliquely  in  the  same  direction. 
At  sunrise,  Captain  Blackwood,  of  the  Euryalus,  a  particu 
lar  friend  of  the  admiral,  made  a  telegraphic  signal -that 
Villeneuve  had  changed  his  course,  and  was  now  inclin 
ing  toward  the  south  and  the  Straits.  "  And  that  is  ex 
actly  what  he  shall  not  do,  if  Nelson  can  prevent  it,"  said 
he.  The  English  admiral,  having  inserted  this  paragraph 
in  his  journal,  re-entered  his  cabin. 

A  few  minutes  later,  the  sun,  which  rose  from  a  misty 
but  calm  horizon,  striking  upon  the  lofty  sails  of  the  com 
bined  fleet,  made  them  appear  successively  through  the 
haze,  and  exhibited  to  the  sight  of  Nelson  and  his  crews 
the  extended  line  of  Villeneuve,  consisting  of  forty-two 
men-of-war  and  eight  frigates.  A  distance  of  eight 
leagues  separated  the  rival  armaments  ;  a  light  breeze 
swelled  their  sails.  A  heavy  sea,  with  a  long  swell  but 
without  foam,  beat  against  the  sides  of  the  vessels  with 
sullen  murmurs,  soon  to  be  overpowered  by  the  bellowing 
of  reiterated  broadsides.  It  was  the  morning  of  the  21st 
of  October,  a  happy  anniversary  in  the  family  of  Nelson. 
On  that  same  day  and  hour,  his  uncle  and  early  patron, 
Captain  Suckling,  had  signalized  his  career  by  a  gallant 
combat,  in  which  four  French  vessels  were  made  prizes. 
Nelson  partook  of  the  superstition  common  to  all  great 
men,  who  feel  and  understand  more  strongly  than  others 
can  the  vast  disproportion  between  their  actual  weakness 

D2 


82  NELSON. 

and  the  great  deeds  they  are  permitted  by  Providence  to 
accomplish.  Anniversaries  are,  to  elevated  minds,  a  com 
pelled  acknowledgment  of  the  controlling  interference  of 
the  Divine  power  in  human  affairs.  Nelson  partook  of 
this  religious  sentiment  peculiar  to  true  heroes  ;  he  felt 
assured  of  victory,  since  chance  had  offered  him  battle  on 
a  day  so  fortunate  in  the  annals  of  his  race. 

While  the  English  fleet  was  hastening  under  a  crowd 
of  canvas  to  diminish  the  distance  which  divided  it  from 
the  enemy — Nelson,  in  the  Victory,  leading  one  column, 
and  Collingwood,  in  the  Royal  Sovereign,  at  the  head  of 
the  other — the  admiral  descended  once  more  to  his  cabin, 
and  inscribed  the  following  prayer  in  his  private  journal: 

"  May  the  great  God,  whom  I  worship,  grant  to  my 
country,  and  for  the  benefit  of  Europe  in  general,  a  great 
and  glorious  victory  ;  and  may  no  misconduct  in  any  one 
tarnish  it ;  and  may  humanity,  after  victory,  be  the  pre 
dominant  feature  in  the  British  fleet.  For  myself  indiv 
idually,  I  commit  my  life  to  Him  who  made  me,  and  may 
his  blessing  light  upon  my  endeavors  for  serving  my  coun 
try  faithfully.  To  Him  I  resign  myself,  and  the  just  cause 
which  is  intrusted  to  me  to  defend.  Amen !  Amen !  Amen  1" 

After  thus  committing  his  life  to  the  hands  of  his  Crea 
tor,  the  thoughts  of  Nelson  returned  to  her  who,  whether 
for  good  or  evil,  for  happiness  or  remorse,  had  ruled  his 
destiny,  and  whose  image  at  that  moment  stepped  between 
him  and  death.  He  hastily  penned  the  following  note,  in 
the  form  of  a  testament,  or  last  request  to  his  country : 

"  October  the  twenty-first,  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  five,  in  sight  of  the  combined  fleets  of  France  and 
Spain,  distant  about  ten  miles. 

"  Whereas,  the  eminent  services  of  Emma  Hamilton, 
widow  of  the  Right  Honorable  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
have  been  of  the  very  greatest  service  to  our  king  and 
country,  to  my  knowledge,  without  her  receiving  any  re 
ward  from  either  our  king  or  country — first,  that  she  ob- 


NELSON.  83 

tained  the  King  of  Spain's  letter,  in  1796,  to  his  brother, 
the  King  of  Naples,  acquainting  him  of  his  intention  to 
declare  war  against  England,  from  which  letter  the  min 
istry  sent  out  orders  to  then  Sir  John  Jervis  to  strike  a 
stroke,  if  opportunity  offered,  against  either  the  arsenals 
of  Spain  or  her  fleets.  That  neither  of  these  was  done  is 
not  the  fault  of  Lady  Hamilton.  The  opportunity  might 
have  been  offered.  Secondly,  the  British  fleet  under  my 
command  could  never  have  returned  the  second  time  to 
Egypt,  had  not  Lady  Hamilton's  influence  with  the  Q,ueen 
of  Naples  caused  letters  to  be  written  to  the  Governor  of 
Syracuse  that  he  was  to  encourage  the  fleet  being  supplied 
with  every  thing,,  should  they  put  into  any  port  in  Sicily. 
We  put  into  Syracuse,  and  received  every  supply,  went  to 
Egypt,  and  destroyed  the  French  fleet.  Could  I  have  re 
warded  those  services,  I  would  not  now  call  upon  my 
country  ;  but  as  that  has  not  been  in  my  power,  I  leave 
Emma,  Lady  Hamilton,  therefore,  a  legacy  to  my  king  and 
country,  that  they  will  give  her  an  ample  provision  to 
maintain  her  rank  in  life.  I  also  leave  to  the  beneficence 
of  my  country  my  adopted  daughter,  Horatia  Nelson 
Thompson,  and  I  desire  she  will  use  in  future  the  name 
of  Nelson  only.  These  are  the  only  favors  I  ask  of  my 
king  and  country  at  this  moment  when  I  am  going  to 
fight  their  battle.  May  God  bless  my  king  and  country, 
and  all  those  whom  I  hold  dear.  My  relations  it  is  need 
less  to  mention ;  they  will,  of  course,  be  amply  provided 
for.  NELSON  AND  BRONTE. 

"  Witness — Henry  Blackwood. 
T.  M.  Hardy." 

Nelson,  having  signed  this  paper,  called  for  Captain 
Hardy,  of  the  Victory,  and  Captain  Blackwood,  of  the  Eu- 
ryalus,  to  append  their  names  as  witnesses  to  this  last  ex 
pression  of  his  wishes,  and  to  establish  the  authenticity 
of  the  document.  His  two  friends  complied  readily  with 
his  desire. 


84  NELSON. 

Horatia  Nelson,  whom  he  names  in  this  testamentary 
writing  as  his  adopted  daughter,  was  in  fact  his  child. 
She  was  then  five  years  of  age,  and  lived  at  Merton  un 
der  the  care  of  her  mother,  Lady  Hamilton.  The  last 
minutes  of  Nelson's  stay  there  were  passed  on  his  knees 
in  prayer  by  the  bedside  of  the  sleeping  infant.  In  his 
passion,  he  associated  the  mother  and  daughter  together, 
and  wept  for  both  by  anticipation  as  his  last  hour  ap 
proached.  Like  Antony  surrounded  by  statues  of  Cleo 
patra,  or  Marshal  Berthier  in  his  tent  kneeling-  before  the 
image  of  the  beautiful  Italian  of  whom  he  was  enamored, 
Nelson  suspended  in  his  cabin  a  full-length  portrait  of 
Lady  Hamilton.  He  carried  another  in  miniature  under 
his  uniform,  and  next  his  heart. 

His  love,  like  that  of  the  knights  of  the  chivalric  ages, 
resembled  a  religious  fervor  inspired  by  beauty.  As  his 
servants  were  stowing  away  the  furniture  of  his  cabin 
and  clearing  for  action,  when  they  moved  the  portrait  of 
Lady  Hamilton  to  a  place  of  security  between  decks,  he 
exclaimed,  "  Take  care  of  my  guardian  angel !"  and  then 
for  the  last  time  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  cherished  features. 

Having  bestowed  the  necessary  attention  on  those  he 
expected  to  survive  him,  Nelson  returned  to  his  quarter 
deck,  and  stood  there,  surrounded  by  his  most  attached 
companions  in  arms,  with  every  thought  now  concentrated 
on  the  approaching  enemy.  He  appeared  to  be  calm  and 
serious,  presenting  a  contrast  to  his  usual  gay  and  ani 
mated  manner  at  the  commencement  of  an  action.  He 
was  no  longer  the  fiery  warrior  of  Aboukir,  communi 
cating  a  portion  of  his  own  ardent  soul  to  the  thunder  of 
his  broadsides. 

The  combined  fleet  advanced  in  close  order,  with  a  de 
termination  and  speed  which  rapidly  diminished  the  in 
tervening  distance,  and  placed  beyond  a  doubt  the  cer 
tainty  of  immediate  battle.  Nelson  felt  £ qually  confident 
of  victory  to  his  country  and  death  for  himself.  He  spoke 
freely  of  the  expected  result  in  conversation  with  his  offi- 


NELSON.  85 


cers.  "  How  many  of  the  enemy's  ships  do  you  think  we 
ought  to  take  or  destroy?"  demanded  he  of  his  friend 
Blackwood.  "  Twelve  or  fifteen,"  replied  the  gallant  cap 
tain.  "  That  will  not  do,"  retorted  Nelson  ;  "  less  than 
twenty  will  not  satisfy  me" 

A  few  minutes  before  the  two  fleets  were  within  range, 
Nelson,  who  had  reserved  for  the  last  moment  the  signal 
of  encouragement  he  was  accustomed  to  issue  to  his  sail 
ors,  and  eagerly  expected  by  them,  exhibited  from  the 
mast-head  of  the  Victory  his  memorable  word  of  battle, 
embracing  in  one  short  sentence  the  grand  emotions  which 
lead  the  brave  to  rush  fearlessly  on  to  death — patriotism, 
a  sense  of  duty,  and  confidence  of  triumph.  The  signal 
ran  thus :  "  ENGLAND  EXPECTS  THAT  EVERY  MAN  WILL  DO 

HIS   DUTY." 

A  cry  of  enthusiastic  admiration  burst  from  every  deck 
as  these  words  became  legible.  The  soul  of  Nelson,  in 
spired  by  the  sense  of  duty,  appealed  to  those  under  him 
through  the  same  principle  which  animated  himself.  He 
was  understood  and  answered.  Every  officer  and  sailor 
in  the  fleet  responded  to  the  call,  with  the  fullest  confi 
dence  in  their  leader.  We  may  parallel  this  brief  ha 
rangue  of  Nelson  with  the  similar  address  of  Bonaparte 
to  his  troops  in  Egypt.  In  these  the  genius  of  the  two 
nations  and  the  two  leaders  is  mutually  characterized. 
"  Soldiers  !"  said  Napoleon,  "  from  the  summit  of  those 
Pyramids  forty  ages  are  looking  down  upon  you."  "  En 
gland,"  said  Nelson,  addressing  his  hardy  mariners  by  sig 
nal,  "  England  expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty."  In  the 
one  case,  the  appeal  is  made  to  glory,  in  the  other  to  pa 
triotism.  The  Englishman  can  not  separate  his  own  fame 
from  that  of  his  country.  The  Frenchman  combats  for 
the  applause  of  the  whole  world.  Renown  intoxicates 
the  one,  duty  is  sufficient  for  the  other.  Posterity  will 
judge  both  according  to  their  endowments  and  deeds. 

"  And  now,"  exclaimed  Nelson,  as  his  ear  caught  the  ac 
clamations  with  which  his  signal  was  received,  "  I  can  do 


86  NELSON. 

no  more.  May  the  Almighty  Disposer  of  all  things  de 
cide  the  event  according  to  his  will  and  the  justice  of  our 
cause.  I  thank  Him  humbly  for  this  great  occasion  of  dis? 
charging  my  duty." 

He  wore  embroidered  upon  his  usual  uniform  the  stars 
of  the  four  orders  with  which  he  had  been  decorated  by 
his  own  and  by  foreign  governments.  These  ornaments 
pointed  him  out  as  a  conspicuous  mark  for  the  riflemen 
posted  in  the  tops  of  the  French  vessels.  The  officers 
upon  the  deck  of  his  ship  trembled  for  the  life  of  their 
commander,  who  thus  exposed  himself  to  a  premeditated 
aim,  and  whispered  to  each  other  an  anxious  desire  that 
some  one  should  entreat  him  to  cover  them.  No  one  was 
found  bold  enough  to  do  so.  It  was  remembered  that  on 
a  former  occasion  he  had  indignantly  rejected  a  similar 
proposal.  "  No  !  no  !"  he  replied ;  "  in  honor  I  gained, 
and  in  honor  I  will  die  with  them !" 

It  was  merely  suggested  to  him  that  his  position  as  com- 
mander-in-chief  was  too  important  to  the  success  of  the 
day  to  justify  him  in  running  the  gauntlet  through  the 
whole  of  the  enemy's  ships  by  leading  the  van,  and  that 
by  shortening  sail  he  might  suffer  the  Leviathan,  which 
followed  the  Victory,  to  pass  to  the  front  and  receive  the 
first  fire.  "  Let  it  be  so,"  -exclaimed  he  ;  "  let  the  Levia 
than  go  ahead  of  us  if  she  can."  At  the  same  time,  he 
ordered  his  flag  captain,  Hardy,  to  crowd  more  sail,  and 
burst  like  a  tempest  upon  the  French  line.  His  captains 
then  quitted  the  quarter-deck  of  the  Victory,  and  each  re 
paired  to  his  own  vessel.  On  taking  leave  of  them,  he 
pressed  Captain  Blackwood  warmly  by  the  hand,  who  as 
sured  him  by  anticipation  of  a  glorious  victory.  "Adieu, 
Blackwood,"  said  he  ;  "  may  God  bless  you  ;  I  shall  never 
see  you  again." 

A  few  minutes  afterward,  the  head  of  the  column,  led 
by  Admiral  Collingwood,  his  second  in  command,  distant 
from  his  own  about  half  a  mile,  broke  the  line  of  the  com 
bined  fleets.  Collingwood's  flag-ship,  the  Royal  Sover- 


NELSON.  87 

cign,  singled  out  the  three-decker,  the  Santa  Anna,  en 
gaged  her  at  close  quarters,  and  was  soon  enveloped  in 
his  own  and  the  enemy's  fire.  "Look!"  exclaimed  Nel 
son,  with  exulting  joy,  "  see  how  that  gallant  fellow  Col- 
lingwood  carries  his  ship  into  action  !  He  has  cleared  the 
way  ;  let  us  hasten  after  him." 

While  Nelson  uttered  these  words  on  the  poop  of  the 
Victory,  Collingwood,  reveling  in  the  storm  of  thunder 
and  the  clouds  of  smoke  that  enveloped  him,  observed  to 
his  own  captain,  Rotherham,  "  What  would  Nelson  give 
to  be  here  !" 

He  was  not  long  behind  his  second  in  command.  Al 
ready  the  fire  from  some  of  the  enemy's  vessels  passed 
over  his  head,  tore  his  sails,  and  fell  like  a  storm  of  hail 
on  the  decks  of  the  Victory.  The  first  who  fell  dead  at 
his  feet  was  his  secretary  Scott,  at  that  moment  in  con 
versation  with  Captain  Hardy.  While  they  were  remov 
ing  the  body  from  the  admiral's  sight,  a  chain  shot  killed 
eight  men  on  the  quarter-deck.  "  This  is  too  warm,"  said 
he  to  Hardy,  "  to  last  long."  The  wind  of  a  cannon  ball 
intercepted  his  speech,  and  carried  a  group  of  sailors  be 
tween  him  and  the  captain.  The  Victory  was  still  silent, 
reserving  her  fire,  and  advancing  gradually.  All  at  once 
she  was  poured  into  by  the  French  Redoutablc,  command 
ed  by  Captain  Lucas,  the  Buccntaur,  a  three-decker,*  bear 
ing  the  flag  of  Villeneuve  himself,  and  the  Spanish  Santis- 
sima  Trimdada,  of  150  guns,  the  largest  floating  fortress 
that  the  sea  had  ever  borne.  Hardy  inquired  of  the  ad 
miral  which  vessel  he  should  first  engage,  to  break  this 
line  of  fire,  and  open  the  way  for  his  own  column.  "  Take 
the  nearest,"  replied  Nelson  ;  "  it  is  of  little  consequence : 
choose  for  yourself."  Hardy  ordered  the  steersman  to  lay 
him  alongside  the  Redoutable.  The  two  ships,  having 
vomited  forth  their  mutual  broadsides,  closed  with  a  shock, 
augmented  by  the  swell  of  the  waves,  and  each  prepared 

*  The  Buccntaur  was  only  a  two-decker,  and  mounted  eighty  guns. 
— Trans.  Note. 


88  NELSON. 

to  board  the  other.  The  force  of  the  attack  and  the  power 
of  the  wind  filling  the  sails  at  the  same  moment,  compel 
led  the  Redoutable  to  fall  a  little  out  of  the  line,  and  the 
Victory  followed  her.  The  ships,  immediately  following 
Nelson,  passed  through  the  opening,  and,  ranging  up  on 
the  right  and  left,  separated  the  compact  order  of  the  com 
bined  fleet  into  detached  squadrons.  The  rapidity  of  their 
motion,  the  accuracy  of  their  mancBuvres,  the  cool  self-pos 
session  of  the  sailors,  the  skill  with  which  they  handled 
their  sails,  multiplied  their  number  at  pleasure,  and  car 
ried  them  in  a  moment  wherever  there  was  an  enemy's 
vessel  to  attack,  or  an  English  ship  to  rescue.  The  sea 
and  the  wind,  adverse  to  all  others,  seemed  to  act  in  con 
cert  with  these  lords  of  the  ocean.  Nelson  trusted  to 
them,  to  secure  the  victory,  and  now  thought  of  nothing 
but  of  fighting  his  own  three-decker. 

Yilleneuve,  his  centre  already  penetrated  and  thrown 
into  confusion  by  Nelson,  with  his  column  of  fifteen  line- 
of-battle  ships,  made  repeated  but  fruitless  signals  through 
his  frigates  to  the  squadron  of  reserve,  consisting  of  ten 
sail,  which  he  had  imprudently  stationed  too  far  off  to  be 
available  in  the  combat.  These  ships,  motionless,  and  as 
if  petrified  by  terror,  beheld  from  a  distance  the  extrem 
ity  to  which  their  commander  was  reduced,  and  his  vain 
efforts  to  recover  the  weather-gage.  Many  others,  break 
ing  from  the  line,  and  floating  with  the  tide  beyond  the 
range  of  shot,  fired  ineffective  broadsides,  and  from  want 
of  ready  intelligence,  or  unity  of  conception,  were  unable 
to  attempt  any  of  those  bold  counter-strokes  which  often 
change  the  features  of  a  battle. 

In  the  mean  while,  a  few  stout  vessels,  animated  by  de 
termined  leaders,  sustained  the  full  shock  of  the  two  col 
umns  led  by  Collingwood  and  Nelson.  Lucas,  the  captain 
of  the  Redoutable,  worthy  of  being  opposed  to  a  hero,  had 
covered  the  deck  of  the  Victory  with  killed  and  wounded 
before  he  was  attacked  himself.  He  was  soon  compelled 
by  superior  weight  of  metal  to  close  his  lower  ports,  and 


NELSON. 


the  two  ships  became  so  closely  jammed  together  that  the 
combatants  engaged  almost  man  to  man.  Lucas  made 
preparations  to  board,  and  armed  his  most  intrepid  mar 
iners  that  he  might  be  ready  to  take  advantage  of  open 
ing  or  opportunity,  as  either  should  occur.  The  proximi 
ty  of  the  ships  inundated  the  decks  of  both  with  blood  and 
carnage,  while  the  combatants  were  enveloped  in  a  dense 
cloud  of  smoke,  which  the  wind  had  not  sufficient  force  to 
disperse.  There  was  the  darkness  of  night  at  midday,  in 
terrupted  only  by  the  flashing  of  repeated  discharges  and 
the  thunder  of  the  cannonade. 

But,  at  the  moment  when  the  French  captain  endeav 
ored  to  lock  his  yard-arms  with  those  of  the  enemy's 
ship,  so  as  to  form  a  single  bridge  of  their  united  decks, 
and  placed  his  boarding  ladders  against  the  side  of  the 
Victory,  another  English  vessel,  the  Temerairc,  command 
ed  by  Captain  Harvey,  pressed  up  to  the  assistance  of  his 
admiral,  and,  ranging  across  the  flank  of  the  Redoutable, 
poured  into  her  his  entire  broadside.  Nelson,  then  veer 
ing  off  to  a  half-cable's  length,  commenced  a  cross  fire  in 
conjunction  with  the  Temeraire  against  the  Redoutable, 
carried  away  her  ensign,  and  three  times  extinguished 
her  fire  in  the  blood  of  her  slaughtered  crew.  The  Re 
doutable,  after  a  short  interval  of  silence,  nailed  fresh 
flags  to  her  masts  and  reopened  her  fire,  as  if  determined 
to  perish  rather  than  ask  or  receive  pity  or  favor.  Her 
sharp-shooters,  posted  in  the  rigging,  on  the  tops,  and  on 
the  yards,  kept  the  victorious  enemy  at  a  distance. 

Villeneuve,  during  this  duel  between  Nelson  and  his 
best  ships,  was  engaged  himself  in  the  Bucentaur,  at  a 
short  distance.  By  an  accident,  his  bowsprit  had  become 
entangled,  at  the  commencement  of  the  action,  in  the 
stern  gallery  of  the  huge  colossus  of  the  fleet,  the  Santis- 
sima  Trinidada,  from  which  impediment  he  had  made 
many  fruitless  efforts  to  disengage  himself. 

Attacked  in  this  terrible  state  of  forced  inaction,  at  first 
by  the  Victory,  and  afterward  by  four  other  English  ships, 


90  NELSON. 

these  two  vessels,  presenting  a  combined  force  of  160 
guns  and  3000  men,  succeeded  by  their  double  broad 
sides  in  keeping  at  bay  the  assailants  who  endeavored 
to  overwhelm  them  from  a  distance.  Villeneuve,  recov 
ering,  in  the  despair  of  his  situation  and  the  ardor  of  bat 
tle,  the  firmness  which  had  failed  him  in  his  earlier  pro 
ceedings,  now  equaled  Nelson  himself  in  intrepidity,  and 
in  the  desperate  resolution  with  which  he  braved  death 
on  the  poop  of  his  flag-ship.  Bursting  with  rage  and  an 
guish  at  his  utter  inability  to  get  free  from  the  Santissi- 
ma  Trinidada,  and  hasten  to  the  support  and  encourage 
ment  of  his  fleet,  he  vainly  implored  the  Spanish  com 
mander  to  try,  by  hoisting  a  crowd  of  sail,  to  tear  him 
self  from  the  attaching  bowsprit,  even  though  his  own 
prow  should  be  carried  away  along  with  it.  But  the  sails 
of  the  huge  Spaniard  were  by  this  time  so  torn  by  .shot, 
and  her  masts  so  completely  disabled,  that  she  lay  like  a 
helpless  log,  the  mere  sport  of  the  waves,  and  a  butt  for 
the  fire  of  the  enemy.  Villeneuve  saw  his  best  officers 
and  600  of  his  crew  perish  around  him.  His  masts  fell 
overboard  in  succession,  carrying  away  shrouds,  tops, 
yards,  rigging,  and  every  vestige  of  his  sails.  At  this 
moment  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  dissipated  the  thick  man 
tle  of  smoke  which  concealed  from  the  unfortunate  admi 
ral  the  state  of  the  battle  in  other  quarters.  He  saw  at 
least  one  half  of  his  fleet  motionless  spectators  of  the  de 
struction  of  the  rest.  He  made  signals  to  them  to  hasten 
instantly  into  the  thickest  of  the  fire.  These  ships  were 
sufficient  in  number  to  change  defeat  to  victory.  Either 
they  misunderstood  or  intentionally  disobeyed  his  orders, 
and  continued  to  steer,  as  if  by  chance,  wherever  the 
breeze  directed,  without  fixed  object,  and  as  far  from  the 
scene  of  action  as  they  could  possibly  remove  themselves. 
Villeneuve.,  seeing  the  Bucentaur  dismasted,  stripped  like 
a  pontoon,  and  on  the  point  of  sinking,  called  in  vain 
upon  his  own  crew,  and  the  crew  of  the  Trinidada,  to 
lower  a  boat,  that  he  might  fly  in  person  to  the  reserve, 


NELSON.  91 

and  force  them  into  the  combat.  The  boats  suspended 
from  the  poop,  shattered  by  bullets,  foundered  when  they 
reached  the  water :  his  vessel,  completely  silenced,  emit 
ted  from  her  port-holes  empty  smoke  in  place  of  deadly 
broadsides.  A  long-boat  from  the  English  line-of-battle 
ship  Mars  approached  without  opposition  to  save  the  rel 
ics  of  the  crew  and  to  receive  the  admiral.  Villeneuve, 
unable  to  find  a  ball  in  this  storm  of  iron  and  lead  to  ter 
minate  his  existence,  but  reserved  by  still  heavier  mis 
fortune  for  suicide,  surrendered  at  last,  when  he  had  nei 
ther  a  cannon  under  his  hands  nor  a  plank  beneath  his 
feet.  The  English  received  him  as  an  enemy  disarmed, 
with  the  respect  due  to  his  calamity  and  his  courage. 
The  Spanish  admiral's  ship,  the  Santissima  Trinidada, 
abandoned  by  her  seven  companions  of  the  same  nation, 
struck  her  colors  after  four  hours  of  determined  but  sol 
itary  resistance.  At  the  sight  of  the  English  ensign  float 
ing  above  this  colossus,  the  remains  of  the  Spanish  squad 
ron  made  all  sail  and  fled  toward  the  roads  of  Cadiz*. 

As  soon  as  the  two  admirals  had  surrendered,  the  Eng 
lish  fell  with  their  disengaged  and  victorious  ships  on  the 
remains  of  the  enemy's  centre,  still  equal  to  cope  with 
them  in  numbers  and  weight  of  metal.  Again  they 
broke  the  line  by  an  irresistible  attack,  and,  cutting  it  up 
into  detached  squadrons,  engaged  in  a  succession  of  sin 
gle  combats.  In  these,  each  individual  captain,  actuated 
by  weakness  or  despair,  distinguished  himself  by  timid 
ity  or  hardihood,  and  tarnished  or  adorned  his  personal 
character  without  a  hope  of  serving  the  public  cause, 
but  anxious  only  to  embellish  the  glory  of  the  day.  The 
Fougueux,  commanded  successively  by  three  officers  who 
fell  one  after  the  other  on  the  poop,  surrendered  only 
when  her  decks  were  strewed  with  400  slain.  The  Plu- 
ton,  commanded  by  Captain  Cosmao,  was  on  the  point  of 
boarding  the  Mars,  the  vanquisher  of  the  Bucentaur,  and 
of  delivering  Villeneuve,  who  was  a  prisoner  on  board 
that  vessel,  when  two  of  her  masts  fell  under  the  fire  of 


92  NELSON. 

three  English  ships  advancing  to  the  rescue  of  their  com 
panion.  The  rear-admiral  Magon,  the  Achilles  of  the 
combined  fleet,  hastening  to  anticipate  the  attack  of  the 
enemy,  when  his  own  line  gave  way  at  their  approach, 
fell  upon  the  English  Tonnant,  of  eighty-four  guns,  plunged 
his  bowsprit  into  her  main-shrouds,  and  rushed  upon  her 
forecastle,  at  the  head  of  his  boarders ;  but  the  broad 
sides  from  two  heavy  ships,  one  on  each  side,  overwhelm 
ed  him  with  an  iron  storm,  and  forced  him  to  retire  upon 
his  own  poop  behind  a  rampart  of  dead.  Three  times, 
with  his  boarding  hatchet  in  his  hand,  he  drove  back  the 
English  who  had  gained  half  the  deck,  and  three  times 
hurled  them  from  his  bulwarks  into  the  sea.  Struck  by 
a  liscayan*  in  the  right  arm,  he  fought  with  his  left.  A 
second  shot  broke  his  leg  ;  he  was  then  taken  between 
decks  to  stanch  the  blood ;  but  the  rents  in  the  sides  of 
the  Pluton  allowed  the  showers  of  grape  to  penetrate  even 
into  this  refuge  of  the  wounded :  a  ball  entered  his  breast, 
and  lie  fell  dead  in  the  arms  of  his  supporters.  His  death 
was  the  signal  for  the  surrender  of  his  vessel.  Eight 
others  struck  at  the  same  time. 

Admiral  Gravina,  commander-in-chief  of  the  Spanish 
squadron,  fell  mortally  wounded  while  defending  his  ship, 
the  Prince  of  Asturias,  with  the  characteristic  courage  of 
his  race.  The  crew  of  the  Achille,  the  last  of  Villeneuve's 
fleet,  who  still  resisted  with  the  fury  of  despair,  had  al 
lowed  her  upper  decks  to  take  fire  during  the  combat. 
Their  whole  attention  engrossed  with  dealing  destruction 
on  the  enemy,  they  had  entirely  neglected  their  own  im 
pending  fate.  The  flames  increased  beyond  their  power 
to  subdue  them ;  instant  explosion  threatened,  and  the 
English  ships  withdrew  to  a  distance  to  escape  from  the 
consequences.  The  crew  of  the  Achille  still  continued 
firing,  and  casting  into  the  sea  some  spars,  bulwarks,  and 
floating  portions  of  their  vessel,  prepared  at  the  last  mo- 

*  A  liscayan  is  a  particular  kind  of  long  musket,  which  carries  an 
iron  ball. — TR. 


NELSON.  93 

ment  to  jump  overboard  and  cling  to  them.  In  a  few  mo 
ments  the  Achille  blew  up,  like  an  exploding  volcano,  in 
the  vacant  space,  and  became  the  voluntary  tomb  of  500 
brave  men.  The  English  mariners  faithfully  obeyed  the 
orders  of  Nelson — allowed  their  anger  to  cease  with  op 
position,  and  instantly  lowered  their  boats  to  rescue  their 
drowning  enemies.  This  sudden  thunderbolt  terminated 
the  battle  in  the  centre  of  the  contending  squadrons. 

Rear-admiral  Dumanoir,  who  might  still  have  struck  a 
blow,  if  not  with  success,  at  least  with  honor,  hauled  off 
from  the  head  of  the  line  with  his  four  splendid  ships, 
which  had  not  been  engaged  ;  he  fired  a  few  useless 
broadsides  as  he  retired  unharmed  and  inglorious  from 
the  field  of  battle.  He  expected  to  reach  Brest  in  safety 
with  his  detachment,  but  he  was  disappointed  ;  the  squad 
ron  of  Cornwallis*  intercepted  and  took  him  before  he 
doubled  Cape  Bretagne. 

The  battle  was  now  over,  except  with  the  group  of 
seven  ships,  in  the  centre  of  which  the  Redoutable  still 
struggled  in  despair  against  the  united  attack  of  the  Te- 
meraire  and  the  Victory.  Captain  Lucas,  of  the  Redouta 
ble,  jammed  close  against  the  Victory,  and  enfiladed  at 
the  same  time  from  prow  to  poop  by  two  other  English 
vessels,  was  unable  to  use  his  broadside,  and  the  combat 
between  him  and  Nelson's  flag-ship  resolved  itself  into  a 
close  fire  of  musketry  on  both  sides.  The  upper  deck  of 
the  Redoutable,  higher  than  that  of  the  Victory,  swept 
the  latter  with  a  shower  of  balls.  The  French  had  also 
stationed  riflemen  in  their  tops  and  on  the  yards,  who 
picked  off  the  officers,  rendered  conspicuous  by  their  dec 
orations.  Captain  Hardy  was  wounded,  with  200  others. 
Nelson,  remarkable  above  all  by  his  stars  and  gestures  of 
command,  was  standing  in  the  blood  of  his  companions, 
when  a  musket-shot  from  the  mizen-top  of  the  Redoutable 
struck  him  between  the  shoulder  and  the  neck,  and  threw 

*  It  was  not  the  squadron  of  Admiral  Cornwallis,  but  that  of  Sir  R. 
Strachan,  which  fought  and  took  Dumanoir  and  his  four  sail.— TR. 


04  NELSON. 

him,  as  if  by  the  impulse  of  an  invisible  hand,  face  fore 
most  upon  the  deck.  Three  sailors  and  Captain  Hardy, 
who  covered  him  with  their  bodies,  ran  forward  to  lift  him 
up.  He  raised  himself  on  one  knee  with  his  remaining 
arm,  and  looked  at  Hardy  with  a  steady  gaze.  "  I  am 
killed,  my  friend,"  said  he;  "the  French  have  done  for 
Nelson  at  last. "  "  I  hope  not,"  replied  his  captain.  "  Hope 
nothing,"  rejoined  Nelson ;  "  the  ball  has  pierced  my 
spine."  His  indomitable  spirit  and  the  animation  of  bat 
tle  still  supported  him,  and  he  continued  to  issue  orders 
while  they  were  carrying  him  below.  Observing  that  the 
tiller  ropes  had  been  shot  away,  he  directed  them  to  be 
replaced.  As  he  passed  through  the  middle  deck,  he  cov 
ered  his  face  with  his  handkerchief,  lest  his  crew  should 
recognize  him  and  be  discouraged  by  his  fall.  The  lower 
deck  was  strewed  with  killed  and  wounded  men,  through 
whom  it  was  necessary  to  clear  a  passage  for  the  admiral. 
He  was  then  placed  on  a  cot  in  one  of  the  midshipmen's 
berths.  The  surgeons  probed  the  wound,  and  saw  at  once 
that  it  was  mortal.  The  melancholy  fact  was  concealed 
from  all,  except  only  Captain  Hardy,  that  no  discourage 
ment  might  be  conveyed  to  the  fleet  through  the  knowledge 
that  their  beloved  chief  had  fallen. 

Convinced  himself,  by  internal  sensation,  that  his  last 
hour  was  approaching,  and  that  the  resources  of  art  were 
unavailing,  he  commanded  the  surgeons  to  leave  him  to 
his  fate,  and  carry  their  aid  to  those  who  could  still  profit 
by  it.  "  For  me,"  said  he,  "  you  can  do  nothing."  The 
only  relief  they  administered  was  by  fanning  him,  and  en 
deavoring  to  assuage  his  burning  thirst  with  a  few  drops 
of  water.  His  own  thoughts  were  entirely  occupied  with 
the  progress  and  events  of  the  battle,  of  which  he  made 
incessant  inquiries  from  all  who  entered.  As  the  enemy's 
ships  struck  in  succession,  the  crew  of  the  Victory  raised 
a  shout  of  triumph  ;  as  these  joyful  cries  reached  his  ears, 
his  eyes  flashed  with  delight,  and  a  ray  of  glory  lighted 
up  his  dying  features.  Captain  Hardy  had  reascended  to 


NELSON.  95 

the  quarter-deck  to  attend  to  his  duty.  "  Where  is  Hardy  ?" 
repeatedly  inquired  Nelson.  "  Why  does  he  not  come  to 
me?  Doubtless  he  is  killed,  and  you  fear  to  tell  me." 
In  another  hour  Hardy  returned,  and  bent  over  his  dying 
chief.  They  looked  on  each  other  with  moistening  eyes, 
and  clasped  hands  in  a  long  silence.  "Well,  Hardy,"  said 
Nelson,  at  length,  "how  goes  the  day?"  "Admirably 
well,"  replied  the  commander  of  the  Victory;  "ten  ships 
have  already  struck ;  the  others  fight  singly,  or  disperse 
altogether.  Five  fresh  vessels  appear  disposed  to  bear 
down  on  the  Victory  (this  was  the  squadron  of  Dumanoir), 
but  I  have  called  some  of  our  own  about  us,  and  we  shall 
soon  dispose  of  them."  "I  hope,"  said  Nelson,  "that 
none  of  our  ships  have  struck."  "  There  is  no  fear  of  that, 
my  lord,"  replied  his  faithful  captain.  Satisfied  that  the 
victory  was  secure,  his  spirits  sank  for  a  moment.  "  I  am 
a  dead  man,  Hardy,"  said  he  ;  "I  feel  that  I  am  going 
fast ;  in  a  few  moments  it  will  be  all  over  with  Nelson." 
His  friend  endeavored  to  encourage  him  with  false  hopes, 
which  he  was  far  from  feeling  himself,  pressed  his  hand, 
already  clammy  with  the  near  approach  of  death,  and  with 
a  saddened  heart  resumed  his  post  on  the  quarter-deck. 

Nelson  then  spoke  of  his  state  with  his  medical  attend 
ant,  who  watched  anxiously  the  changing  symptoms  of 
life  and  death.  "  I  feel  something  here,"  said  he  to  the 
surgeon,  placing  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  "  which  tells  me 
that  my  end  approaches."  "  Do  you  suffer  much  pain,  my 
lord?"  inquired  the  doctor.  "So  much,"  answered  the 
wounded  admiral,  "  that  death  would  be  a  relief.  Never 
theless,"  added  he,  in  a  more  feeble  tone,  "  every  body 
wishes  to  live  a  little  longer  !  Alas  !  what  would  become 
of  poor  Lady  Hamilton  if  she  knew  the  state  I  was  in  at 
this  moment!"  His  country,  his  renown,  and  his  fatal 
love,  disputed  the  possession  of  his  last  thoughts. 

An  instant  after,  Hardy  came  down  again,  his  face  beam 
ing  with  joy,  and,  taking  Nelson  by  the  hand,  announced 
to  him  a  complete  and  undisputed  victory.  He  could  not 


96  NELSON. 

yet  name  exactly  the  number  of  vessels  that  adorned  his 
triumph,  but  he  could  answer  for  fifteen  or  sixteen  at  least. 
"  Tis  well !  'tis  excellent !"  exclaimed  Nelson  ;  "  but  yet" 
— as  he  thought  of  his  conversation  in  the  morning  with 
Blackwood — "  I  had  bargained  for  twenty."  Then,  raising 
his  voice,  and  speaking  with  great  rapidity  and  decision, 
"Anchor,  Hardy,"  said  he  ;  "  bring  the  fleet  to  an  anchor 
before  night."  Hardy  signified  that  this  care  would  de 
volve  on  Collingwood,  who,  by  his  rank,  would  now  com 
mand  the  fleet.  "  No,  no  ;  not  while  I  live  !"  replied  the 
admiral,  making  an  effort  to  raise  himself  in  his  bed ; 
"  obey  my  orders,  and  anchor !  Anchor  before  night — 
have  every  thing  in  readiness  to  anchor!"  He  had  pre 
dicted  from  the  early  morning  a  heavy  gale  of  wind,  which 
he  expected  to  come  on  at  night,  and  which  would  prove 
equally  dangerous  to  the  victors  and  the  vanquished.  The 
thought  of  placing  the  fleet  in  safety  by  bringing  them  to 
anchor  was  never  for  a  moment  absent  from  his  mind. 
"  Don't  fling  me  overboard,"  said  he  to  Hardy ;  "  I  wish 
to  repose  with  my  family  in  the  church-yard  of  my  native 
village — unless,"  he  added,  thinking  of  Westminster  Ab 
bey,  "my  king  and  country  may  be  pleased  to  order  other 
wise.  But,  above  all,  my  dear  Hardy,"  continued  he,  with 
a  burst  of  tender  regard,  increased  by  the  near  prospect 
of  eternal  separation,  "  take  care  of  Lady  Hamilton ! 
Hardy,  watch  over  the  unfortunate  Lady  Hamilton  !" 

After  a  moment  of  silence,  as  if  to  receive  from  his  friend 
a  pledge  that  his  last  wishes  should  be  faithfully  executed, 
"  Embrace  me,  Hardy,"  he  said.  Hardy  bent  forward  and 
kissed  him  on  the  cheek.  "  It  is  well,"  added  Nelson ;  "  I 
am  now  satisfied.  Thank  God,  I  HAVE  DONE  MY  DUTY  !" 
Hardy,  seeing  his  eyelids  close,  remained  a  moment  long 
er  watching  his  failing  respiration,  inclined  once  more  to 
ward  him,  and  kissed  him  on  the  forehead.  "  Who  is 
that?"  inquired  Nelson,  opening  his  eyes.  "  It  is  Hardy, 
who  takes  leave  of  you,"  replied  the  captain.  "  God  bless 
you,  Hardy,"  murmured  the  dying  admiral,  endeavoring 


NELSON.  97 


to  recognize  the  features  of  his  friend.     Hardy  returned 
to  his  post,  and  saw  him  no  more  in  life. 

The  chaplain  knelt  in  prayer  by  the  side  of  his  cot.  Nel 
son  saw,  and  made  a  sign  that  he  recognized  him.  '  Doc 
tor,"  said  he, "  I  have  not  been  a  very  great  sinner."  Then, 
after  a  long  silence,  "  Remember,"  he  added,  "  I  bequeath 
Lady  Hamilton,  and  my  little  daughter  Horatia,  to  my 
country."  He  then  fell  into  a  sort  of  sleep,  while  his  lips 
uttered  inarticulate  sounds,  in  which  the  names  of  Em 
ma,  Horatia,  and  his  country  were  partly  distinguishable. 
Then,  raising  himself  with  a  final  effort,  he  repeated  three 
times  the  last  words  of  his  memorable  signal, "  Thank  God, 
/  have  done  my  duty  /"  Immediately  afterward  he  expired 
as  he  had  lived,  a  noble  and  undaunted  warrior. 

It  was  now  half  past  four  in  the  afternoon.  The  last 
distant  cannon  resounded  across  the  seas.  A  salvo  of  ar 
tillery  announced  the  departure  of  his  soul  from  the  scene 
of  combat,  and  heralded  its  entrance  into  a  glorious  im 
mortality. 

Night  and  tempest  assisted  to  complete  the  victory,  but 
the  waves  disputed  the  possession  of  the  trophies.  Six 
English  ships,  without  sails,  masts,  or  rigging,  like  those 
of  the  French  and  Spaniards,  exhibited,  in  their  crushed 
ribs  and  slaughtered  crews,  an  evidence  of  dearly-bought 
triumph.  With  difficulty  they  were  enabled  to  float  upon 
the  heavy  swell,  which  rapidly  got  up  with  the  wind  on 
the  setting  of  the  autumnal  sun.  Admiral  Collingwood, 
who  had  succeeded  to  the  command,  depressed  by  the  loss 
of  his  chief,  instead  of  bringing  the  fleet  to  an  anchor,  as 
Nelson  had  emphatically  recommended,  employed  himself 
in  manning  the  seventeen  prizes  taken  during  the  battle, 
and  in  pursuing  the  relics  of  the  combined  fleet.  Dark 
ness  and  the  storm  surprised  him  while  endeavoring  to 
secure  his  spoils.  The  sea,  the  winds,  the  thunder,  the 
lightning,  and  the  rocks,  rendered  that  night,  the  follow 
ing  day,  and  the  second  night  after  the  battle,  more  terri 
ble  than  the  combat  itself.  The  enraged  elements  sport- 
VOL.  I  — E 


NELSON. 


ed  at  pleasure  during  sixty  hours  with  the  three  fleets, 
which,  the  evening  before,  had  proudly  covered  the 
with  their  flags. 

Several  of  the  prizes  taken  by  Nelson,  separated  by  the 
furv  of  the  waves  from  the  English  ships  to  which  they 
were  attached,  broke  from  the  cables  that  towed  them, 
and  sought  to  escape  by  flight,  or  went  ashore  on  the  rocks 
of  Cape  Trafalgar.     The  Bucentaur  was  dashed  to  pieces 
as  she  touched  the  coast.     The  Indomptabk  broke  from 
her  anchors  during  the  night,  and  marked  her  funereal 
course  by  the  light  of  her  own  poop-lanterns  toward  Point 
Diamond,  where  she  perished  with  her  entire  crew  who 
uttered  but  a  single  cry  of  despair  as  they  went  down. 
Collin^wood,  fearing  to  lose  all  his  trophies,  set  fire  to  the 
Santissima  Trinidada,  and  heaped  upon  the  same  enormous 
pile  the  three  three-deckers,  the  St.  Augustin,  the  Argo- 
nauta,  and  Santa  Anna.     The  Berwick  foundered  with  all 
hands  onboard.     Others  floated  at  the  mercy  of  the  winds 
and  waves,  from  bay  to  bay  on  the  shores  of  Africa  or 
Spain.     The  English  admiral  with  difficulty  earned  the 
remainder  to  Gibraltar,  chained  to  the  coffin  of  Nelson. 
The  flag  of  England  reigned  triumphant  for  many  years 
on  the  wide  ocean,  and  throughout  the  extent  of  the  Med 
iterranean.    While  Bonaparte  subjugated  Continental  Eu 
rope  to  his  arms,  Nelson  Kad  gained  for  England  the  . 
minion  of  the  seas. 

Admiral  Villeneuve,  a  captive  in  England,  trembled  at 
the  magnitude  of  the  disaster  he  had  foreboded,  but  which 
the  reproach  of  cowardice  hurled  against  him  by  Bona 
parte  had  made  him  rashly  encounter.  Under  the  pretext 
of  studying  anatomy  to  beguile  the  tedium  of  imprison 
ment,  he  had  ascertained,  from  the  tuition  of  a  man  of  sci 
ence,  the  exact  place  and  organization  of  the  heart.  _W 
perfectly  satisfied  of  the  mark,  he  pierced  himself  through 
the  breast  with  a  long  needle  ;  thus,  like  Seneca,  escaping 
by  a  slow  and  voluntary  death  from  the  disgrace  of  a  dis 
honored  life  or  the  vengeance  of  disappointed  tyranny. 


NELSON.  99 

By  this  deliberate  suicide,  he  proved  to  his  calumniators, 
and  the  master  who  had  insulted  him,  as  he  had  already 
evinced  in  the  battle,  that  in  an  unequal  contest  he  had 
dreaded  more  the  defeat  of  his  country  than  the  hazard  of 
destruction  to  himself. 

The  rejoicings  for  the  greatest  naval  triumph  England 
had  ever  achieved  were  checked  in  London  by  lamenta 
tions  for  the  death  of  Nelson.  The  undisputed  empire 
of  the  seas  appeared  to  the  English  an  inadequate  com 
pensation  for  the  loss  of  their  great  admiral.  Mourning 
was  on  the  ensigns  of  the  ships,  in  the  harbors,  and  in 
the  cottages.  The  coffin  of  Nelson  represented  the  trium 
phal  chariot  of  death.  The  crowd  who  attended  the  dis 
embarkation  of  his  remains,  brought  home  by  the  Victory, 
tore  into  small  pieces  the  outward  covering  of  oak  which 
enclosed  the  leaden  receptacle,  and  distributed  the  relics 
as  those  of  the  tutelary  deity  of  their  country. 

A  public  funeral  was  decreed,  and  imperishable  monu 
ments  voted  by  a  sorrowing  people.  Statues  were  erect 
ed  in  all  the  principal  cities  of  the  kingdom.  The  entire 
nation  took  part  in  his  obsequies,  and  formed  an  escort 
from  Greenwich  to  Westminster.  The  sighs  and  tears  of 
assembled  millions  were  the  only  acclamations  that  attend 
ed  this  sad  triumph.  The  Thames  appeared  to  cover  her 
waters  with  symbols  of  mourning.  Thousands  of  small 
vessels  and  boats,  dressed  with  sable  flags,  followed  slowly 
the  floating  catafalque,  pulled  by  muffled  oars,  and  man 
ned  by  sailors  clothed  in  black.  The  funeral  march  was 
interrupted  by  minute-guns.  The  crew  of  the  Victory  car 
ried  their  admiral  upon  their  shoulders  to  his  last  resting- 
place  in  the  vaults  of  St.  Peter's  Cathedral.  At  the  mo 
ment  when,  according  to  the  usual  custom  at  the  funeral 
of  an  admiral,  his  flag  was  to  be  lowered  with  the  coffin 
into  the  tomb,  these  faithful  mariners  seized  the  banner, 
divided  it  with  pious  affection,  and  distributed  the  differ 
ent  portions  to  be  preserved  forever  in  their  families  as 
patriotic  talismans.  The  gratitude  of  a  nation  creates  the 


100  NELSON. 

emulation  of  heroism.  Great  Britain,  greater  in  this  feel 
ing  than  either  Athens  or  Rome,  multiplies  her  patriots 
by  rendering  them  due  honor.  An  earldom  was  conferred 
on  the  brother  of  Nelson,  with  a  revenue  of  6000  guineas 
per  annum ;  10,000  were  voted  to  each  of  his  sisters,  and 
100,000  were  assigned  to  purchase  an  estate  to  remain  he 
reditary  in  the  family.  Lady  Hamilton  and  her  daughter 
Horatia  were  forgotten  in  these  honors  and  rewards.  Eng 
land  acknowledged  nothing  in  the  testament  of  her  hero 
which  reflected  discredit  on  his  memory.  Less  indulgent, 
and  more  religious  than  France,  who,  as  in  the  cases  of 
Henri  Q,uatre,  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  and  Napoleon,  equal 
ly  celebrated  the  weaknesses  and  virtues  of  her  leading 
men,  England  draws  a  line  between  the  public  and  pri 
vate  conduct  of  distinguished  servants.  She  lends  no 
countenance  to  the  moral  delinquencies  of  a  popular  char 
acter  ;  she  blushes,  and  covers  them  with  a  veil. 

The  fame  of  Nelson  has  more  than  expiated  the  errors 
of  his  life.  The  stern  sense  of  propriety  of  the  British  na 
tion  can  not  deny  that  two  blots  tarnish  the  fair  fame  of 
their  cherished  idol :  the  one,  a  stain  of  disgrace  in  the 
death  of  Caraccioli ;  the  other,  a  taint  of  immorality  in 
his  love  for  a  mistress,  to  whom  he  tendered  the  privileges 
and  public  consideration  of  a  wife.  No  one  has  attempt 
ed  to  remove  or  wash  away  these  blemishes,  which  are 
the  more  indelibly  impressed,  as  the  eyes  of  posterity  are 
drawn  toward  the  subject  by  an  unparalleled  blaze  of 
glory. 

Lady  Hamilton,  universally  reprobated  as  the  instiga 
ting  cause  of  Nelson's  errors,  sank,  after  his  death,  into  the 
insignificance  from  which  her  personal  charms  alone  had 
originally  elevated  her.  She  fell  from  the  splendor  of  vice 
to  utter  neglect,  and  from  opulence  to  poverty.  Twenty 
years  after  the  death  of  the  victor  of  Trafalgar,  an  un 
known  female,  still  preserving  the  remains  of  extraordi 
nary  beauty,  died  in  a  foreign  land,  in  Calais,  where,  for 
several  years,  with  reduced  means,  she  had  sought  an  ob- 


NELSON.  10] 

scure  asylum.  After  her  decease,  the  landlord  ascertain 
ed  from  her  papers  that  this  impoverished  stranger  was 
Lady  Hamilton,  the  widow  of  an  embassador,  the  favorite 
of  the  Glueen  of  Naples,  and  the  adored  mistress  of  Nel 
son  !  She  was  buried  by  public  charity.  Nelson,  by  nam 
ing  her  in  his  will,  had  only  bequeathed  to  her  the  scan 
dal  of  his  attachment  and  the  indignation  of  his  country. 


H  E  L  0 1 S  E. 

A.D.  1070. 

THIS  history  has  been  assigned  to  verse  ;  nevertheless, 
we  do  not  fear  to  include  it  in  a  volume  intended  to  re 
flect  the  grandest  emotions  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
have  operated  on  the  destinies  of  nations.  Love  is  one 
of  the  leading  influences  of  our  nature  ;  and  when  this 
sentiment  is  elevated  by  female  devotion — when  it  is  irra 
diated  by  beauty,  excused  by  weakness,  expiated  by  mis 
fortune,  transformed  by  repentance,  sanctified  by  religion, 
rendered  popular  through  a  long  epoch  by  genius,  perpet 
uated  by  constancy  on  earth,  and  aspirations  of  immortal 
ity  hereafter — this  passion  almost  resolves  itself  into  virtue, 
and  raises  to  the  level  of  heroic  saints  two  lovers,  whose 
adventures  became  the  theme,  and  their  tears  the  sorrows 
of  an  age.  Such  is  the  story,  or,  rather,  the  poem  of  He- 
loise  and  Abelard.  During  eight  centuries  no  other  has 
so  profoundly  touched  the  human  heart.  Whatever  moves 
men  long  and  deeply,  forms  a  portion  of  their  history  ;  for 
human  nature  is  equally  compounded  of  mind  and  feeling. 
All  that  softens,  improves.  Admiration  and  pity  affect 
the  heart,  and  the  heart  is  the  safest  and  strongest  organ 
of  virtue.  These  two  lives  comprise  a  single  one  ;  they 
are  so  interwoven,  that  each  existence  is  a  perpetual  re 
bound  of  the  other ;  the  same  event,  the  same  sensation, 
reflected  back  again  in  a  double  echo,  produces  the  same 
undivided  interest.  Let  us  now  commence  our  narration. 

Peter  Abelard  was  the  son  of  a  knight  of  Brittany, 
named  Beranger,  whose  family  had  long  possessed,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Nantes,  the  castle  and  village  of  Palais. 
Beranger  exercised,  like  all  the  gentlemen  of  his  day,  the 
noble  trade  of  war.  His  son  was  brought  up  to  arms  ;  but 


104  HELOISE. 

the  piety  of  his  race,  attested  hy  the  religious  habit  which 
Beranger,  his  wife  and  daughters,  assumed  in  their  old 
age,  associated  with  the  military  education  of  the  youthful 
Abelard  the  study  of  letters,  philosophy,  and  theology. 
The  leading,  and  only  intellectual  profession  of  that  peri 
od,  the  Church,  attracted  to  her  ranks  all  the  young  men 
who  felt  within  themselves  the  seeds  of  poetry  or  elo 
quence,  the  love  of  fame,  and  the  ambition  of  mental  su 
premacy.  Abelard  was  more  happily  endowed  than  any 
other  individual  of  his  time.  He  disdained  the  rude  life 
of  a  mere  warrior,  and  resigned  to  his  brothers  his  rights 
of  primogeniture  over  the  domains  and  vassals  of  the 
house.  He  quitted  the  paternal  mansion,  and  went  from 
school  to  school,  from  master  to  master,  gathering  all  those 
buried  treasures  of  Greek  and  Roman  literature  which 
France  and  Italy  had  begun  to  disinter  from  manuscripts, 
to  restore  to  light,  and  to  worship  as  the  profane  mysteries 
of  human  genius.  His  warm  heart  and  fervid  imagina 
tion  were  not  satisfied  with  the  dead  languages  :  he  wrote 
and  spoke  in  Greek  and  Latin,  but  he  sang  in  French. 

The  verses,  for  which  he  composed  the  music  himself, 
that  the  passion  by  which  they  were  inspired  should  con 
vey  its  full  effect  to  the  soul  by  two  senses  at  a  time,  be 
came  the  manual  of  all  poets.  They  spread  with  the  ra 
pidity  of  an  echo  which  multiplies  its  own  sound ;  they 
formed  the  conversation  of  men  of  letters,  the  delight  of 
women,  the  secret  language  of  lovers,  the  interpreters  of 
undeclared  sentiments,  the  popular  songs  of  cities,  castles, 
cottages  ;  they  carried  the  name  of  the  young  musician 
and  familiar  poet  throughout  the  provinces  of  France.  He 
enjoyed  a  personal  fame  during  the  spring  of  life  in  the 
secret  souls  of  all  who  loved,  dreamed,  sighed,  or  sang. 
A  melodious  voice,  which  gave  animation  to  language  and 
music  ;  a  youth  precocious  in  celebrity  ,  a  Grecian  regu 
larity  of  features,  a  tall  and  graceful  figure,  a  noble  bear 
ing,  a  natural  modesty,  in  which  the  bashfulness  of  early 
years  blushed  for  the  maturity  of  talent — all  these  quali- 


HELOISE.  105 

ties  combined  in  Abelard  attraction  with  renown.  He 
was  ever  present  to  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  hearts  of  the 
women  who  had  seen  him,  or  had  even  heard  his  name 
pronounced.  It  was  thus  that  Heloise  recalled  his  image 
to  her  heart  long  after  the  ruin  of  her  illusions  and  her 
love. 

But  in  his  early  verses  he  sang  of  feelings  which  he 
had  not  yet  experienced  personally.  His  love  sonnets 
were  flights  of  imagination  imitated  from  the  ancient 
poets.  They  breathed  the  accents  of  the  heart,  but  not 
the  heart  of  the  writer.  He  lived  apart  from  the  world, 
in  study,  in  piety,  and  in  the  perspective  of  future  glory. 
His  songs  were  his  recreation  ;  philosophy  and  eloquence 
exclusively  enchained  his  faculties.  His  language  soft 
ened  by  poetry  ;  his  eloquence  harmonized  by  music  ;  the 
rich,  spontaneous  fertility  of  his  imagination  ;  his  memory 
fed  and  strengthened  by  universal  reading ;  the  brilliancy, 
propriety,  and  novelty  of  the  images  into  which  he  sculp 
tured  his  ideas,  to  render  them  palpable  to  his  auditors — 
such  were  the  endowments  which  made  this  young  man 
(seated  at  the  feet  of  the  most  celebrated  chairs  in  the 
University  of  Paris)  the  master  of  masters  and  the  popu 
lar  orator  of  the  schools.  In  that  day  the  schools  consti 
tuted  the  forum  of  the  human  race.  They  were  all  that 
knowledge,  science,  religion,  opinion,  the  press,  the  trib 
une,  became  in  after  ages.  The  true  word,  scarcely  re 
covered,  governed  the  world,  but  under  the  exclusive 
domination  of  the  Church.  Eloquence,  philosophy,  and 
faith  were  only  exercised  on  the  same  recurring  texts. 
There  was  one  continued  struggle,  in  disputes  which  are 
now  unintelligible,  to  produce  the  triumph  of  revelation 
by  arguments  drawn  from  profane  reason,  and  to  call  in 
Plato  and  the  ancient  sages  to  bear  testimony  to  Christ 
and  the  apostles.  It  is  easy  to  understand  to  what  dia 
lectic  subtleties  the  minds  of  men  were  sharpened  by  such 
disquisitions.  But  these  controversies,  for  other  views 
of  Providence,  are  sometimes  intended  as  exercises  to 
E2 


106  HELOISE. 

strengthen  human  intellect,  and  to  supply  the  world  with 
high  examples  of  talent  and  reputation. 

The  .young  orator  followed  the  stream  of  his  age.  He. 
ascended  the  tribune  of  the  day,  the  pulpits  of  the  public 
schools,  round  which  the  people  crowded  with  greater 
eagerness,  as  they  were  only  emerging  from  profound  ig 
norance,  and  expected  the  approach  of  some  unknown 
light  just  then  beginning  to  appear.  Abelard,  at  first  an 
humble  and  docile  disciple,  raised  himself  by  degrees,  on 
the  applause  and  encouragement  of  his  listeners,  to  a  level 
with  the  oracles  of  the  schools,  and  soon  began  to  dispute 
and  oppose  their  dogmas.  Finally  he  subverted  them  all, 
founded  a  new  college  of  philosophy  at  Melun,  carried 
away  in  his  train  the  young  students,  fanaticized  by  his 
genius  ;  by  his  increasing  popularity  spread  consternation 
among  his  rivals,  who  were  almost  deserted  in  Paris  ; 
consumed  himself  with  the  fire  he  had  kindled  in  public 
imagination  ;  excited  the  envy  of  the  learned  in  the  Uni 
versity  and  the  Church  ;  retired  for  two  years  to  the  ob 
scurity  of  his  native  district,  to  fortify  his  powers ;  and 
reappeared  in  Paris  stronger,  more  celebrated,  and  more 
controlling  than  before.  He  pitched  his  camp,  or  rather 
his  school,  on  the  eminence,  then  almost  solitary,  on  which 
now  stands  the  church  of  St.  Genevieve. 

This  became  the  Mount  Aventine  of  a  people  of  disci 
ples,  quitting  the  ancient  seminaries  to  imbibe  eagerly  the 
fresh  and  fearless  eloquence  of  Abelard.  Each  of  his  fol 
lowers  paid  a  small  fee  to  the  philosopher — the  humble 
tribute  of  a  nation  thirsting  for  truth.  This  salary,  mul 
tiplied  by  the  incalculable  number  of  contributors,  elevated 
the  fortune  of  Abelard  as  high  as  his  fame.  He  was  in 
the  flower  of  his  years,  of  his  glory,  of  his  virtue  ;  for  up 
to  this  period  he  had  indulged  in  no  passion  except  his 
passion  for  truth  and  faith.  The  pride  so  natural  to  one 
who  is  looked  up  to  by  men,  and  the  seductive  charm  at 
tendant  on  female  admiration,  exalted  and  weakened  him 
at  the  same  moment.  A  double  snare  awaited  him  as  he 


HELOISE.  10? 

reached  the  maturity  of  his  genius  and  reputation.  He 
was  then  thirty-eight.  He  reigned  by  eloquence  over  the 
spirit  of  youth  ;  by  beauty  over  the  regard  of  women  ;  by 
his  love-songs,  which  penetrated  all  hearts  ;  and  by  his 
musical  melodies,  which  were  repeated  in  every  mouth. 
Let  us  imagine  in  a  single  man  the  first  orator,  the  first 
philosopher,  the  first  poet,  the  first  musician  of  his  age — 
Antinoiis,  Cicero,  Petrarch,  Schubert,  united  in  one  living 
celebrity — and  we  can  then  form  an  idea  of  the  popularity 
of  Abelard  at  this  period  of  his  life. 

At  that  time  there  dwelt  in  Paris  a  rich  and  powerful 
canon  of  the  Cathedral,  Fulbert,  who  resided  in  the  learned 
quarter  of  the  city.  He  had  a  niece  living  with  him  (some 
say  she  was  his  daughter),  whom  he  loved  with  paternal 
affection.  This  niece,  aged  eighteen,  and  consequently 
twenty  years  younger  than  Abelard,  was  already  much 
noticed  in  Paris  for  her  beauty  and  early  genius.  Her 
uncle,  the  canon,  had  treated  her  with  all  those  blind 
indulgences  which,  while  they  adorned  a  chosen  nature 
with  every  gift  of  intelligence  and  education,  he  saw  not, 
in  the  weakness  of  age,  would  prepare  a  more  signal  vic 
tory  for  seduction,  love,  and  misfortune.  Her  name  was 
Heloise.  The  medallions  and  the  statue  which  perpetu 
ate  her,  according  to  contemporary  traditions,  and  the 
casts  taken  after  death  in  her  sepulchre,  represent  a  young 
female,  tall  in  stature,  and  exquisitely  formed.  An  oval 
head,  slightly  depressed  toward  the  temples  by  the  con 
flict  of  thought ;  a  high  and  smooth  forehead,  where  in 
telligence  reveled  without  impediment,  like  a  ray  of  light 
unchecked  by  an  obstructing  angle,  on  the  smooth  surface 
of  a  marble  slab  ;  eyes  deeply  set  within  their  arch,  and 
the  balls  of  which  reflected  the  azure  tint  of  heaven  ;  a 
small  nose,  slightly  raised  toward  the  nostrils,  such  as 
sculpture  models  from  nature  in  the  statues  of  women 
immortalized  by  the  feelings  of  the  heart ;  a  mouth  where 
breathed,  between  brilliant  teeth,  the  smiles  of  genius  and 
the  tenderness  of  sympathy  ;  a  short  chin,  slightly  dim- 


108  HEL01SE. 

pled  in  the  middle,  as  if  by  the  finger  of  reflection  often 
placed  upon  the  lips  ;  a  long,  flexible  neck,  which  carried 
the  head  as  the  lotus  bears  the  flower,  while  undulating 
with  the  motion  of  the  wave  ;  falling  shoulders,  gracefully 
moulded,  and  blending  into  the  same  line  with  the  arms  ; 
slender  fingers,  flowing  curls,  delicate  anatomical  articu 
lations,  the  feet  of  a  goddess  upon  her  pedestal — such  is 
the  statue,  by  which  we  may  judge  of  the  woman  !  Let 
the  life,  the  complexion,  the  look,  the  attitude,  the  youth, 
the  languor,  the  passion,  the  paleness,  the  blush,  the 
thought,  the  feeling,  the  accent,  the  smile,  the  tears,  be 
restored  to  the  skeleton  of  this  other  Inez  de  Castro,  and 
we  shall  again  look  on  Heloise.  Her  features,  according 
to  the  historians  of  the  time  and  Abelard  himself,  were 
less  striking  to  the  eye  from  beauty  than  from  expression 
— that  graceful  physiognomy  of  the  heart,  which  draws, 
invites,  and  compels  a  reciprocation  of  the  love  it  offers — 
supreme  beauty,  far  superior  to  the  charms  which  com 
mand  admiration  only.  Here  we  may  use  the  words  of 
Abelard  :  "  Her  renown,"  says  he,  "  had  spread  through 
out  France.  All  that  could  seduce  the  imagination  of 
men  presented  itself  to  me.  Heloise  became  the  adored 
object  of  my  dreams,  and  I  persuaded  myself  that  I  could 
win  her  affection.  I  was  then  so  celebrated,  my  youth 
and  beauty  so  enhanced  my  fame,  that  I  thought  it  impos 
sible  any  woman  could  reject  my  proffered  love.  I  aban 
doned  myself  to  the  intoxication  of  hope,  the  more  readily 
that  Heloise  herself  was  accomplished  in  letters,  in  the 
sciences,  and  the  arts.  A  poetical  correspondence  had  al 
ready  commenced  between  us,  and  I  ventured  to  write  to 
her  with  greater  freedom  than  I  could  have  spoken.  I 
yielded  entirely  to  this  passion,  and  sought  every  possible 
means  of  establishing  familiar  relations  and  opportunities 
of  intercourse." 

Nothing  was  more  easy  of  accomplishment.  The  uncle 
and  niece,  without  the  knowledge  of  Abelard,  conspired  to 
assist  him  :  the  niece  by  her  charms,  the  uncle  by  his 


HELOISE.  109 

pride.  The  friendship  of  such  an  illustrious  man  was  a 
distinction  for  any  family.  Abelard,  through  mutual 
friends,  intimated  to  Fulbert  that  the  care  of  his  domestic 
affairs  interfered  with  his  studies  and  predominating  love 
of  learning,  and  that  he  wished  to  seek  the  hospitality  of 
an  honorable  and  enlightened  family,  where  he  might  live 
like  a  son  under  the  roof  of  his  father.  Fulbert,  overjoy 
ed  and  nattered  by  these  proposals,  at  once  offered  his 
hearth  to  Abelard.  He  should  reap,  he  said,  the  double 
advantage  of  intimacy  with  the  first  man  of  the  age,  and 
finish  the  education  of  his  niece  without  further  expense. 
She,  too,  by  constant  conversation  with  the  oracle  of  his 
day,  would  derive  virtue  and  knowledge  from  their  source. 
We  can  readily  believe,  and  the  fact  is  attested  by  the 
complaisance  and  subsequent  rage  of  Fulbert,  that  the 
uncle,  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Abelard,  and  hoping  to 
win  for  his  niece  the  only  husband  in  his  opinion  worthy 
of  her,  lent  himself  with  paternal  interest  to  an  intercourse 
from  which  might  spring  the  mutual  attachment  and  union 
of  these  young  hearts. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Abelard  became  an  inmate  in  the 
house  of  Fulbert.  This  domestic  familiarity,  authorized 
by  the  uncle  of  the  fair  disciple,  offered  to  bo,th  the  oppor 
tunity,  and,  we  may  almost  say,  imposed  the  necessity  of 
mutual  love.  Far  from  objecting  to  a  close  intimacy  be 
tween  the  master  and  his  pupil,  Fulbert  entreated  Abelard 
to  impart  to  his  niece  all  his  secrets  of  learning,  and  all 
his  rare  acquirements  in  oratory,  poetry,  theology,  so  as  to 
complete  in  her  the  intellectual  prodigy  which  nature  had 
commenced,  and  France  admired  with  unwonted  astonish 
ment  in  a  woman.  He  yielded  up  to  him  entirely  his  pa 
ternal  authority  over  Heloise,  and,  in  accordance  with  the 
rude  discipline  of  the  age,  authorized  him  even  to  correct 
her  with  blows  if  she  failed  either  in  obedience  or  atten 
tion.  In  a  word,  he  reduced  Heloise  to  a  state  of  mental 
thraldom,  and  constituted  Abelard  an  absolute  master. 
Heloise  was  readily  disposed  to  acknowledge  not  only  a 


110  HELOISE. 

preceptor,  but  a  divinity,  in  the  handsomest  and  most  cele 
brated  man  of  his  age.  Her  rapid  progress  kept  pace  with 
the  wishes  of  her  uncle.  She  labored  no  longer  for  the 
world,  but  for  Abelard  alone  ;  her  sole  ambition  centred 
in  the  wish  to  please  him.  Nature,  love,  and  genius  com 
bined  to  render  this  young  girl  the  wonder  of  her  time. 

Abelard  became  intoxicated  with  his  avocation.  Two 
souls,  tempted  by  such  opportunities,  could  not  fail  to  fall 
into  the  snare  which  want  of  foresight  or  complicity  had 
spread  for  them  under  such  specious  pretexts  and  such  al 
luring  indulgences.  The  external  world  disappeared  be 
fore  them — they  loved.  Abelard,  who  now  thought  of 
Heloise  alone,  proclaimed  his  passion  in  poems,  in  which 
the  verses  and  the  music,  tempered  in  the  same  fire,  spread 
the  name  of  Heloise  as  a  heavenly  secret  divulged  to  the 
earth,  and  which  the  whole  world  confided  to  one  another 
by  repeating  these  divine  songs,  until  at  last  they  reached 
the  ears  of  Fulbert  himself. 

But  Fulbert  affected  not  to  hear,  or  to  disbelieve,  this 
profanation  of  his  domestic  hearth.  He  replied  that  Ab 
elard  was,  by  his  genius  and  piety,  too  much  elevated  be 
yond  ordinary  mortals  to  descend,  even  under  the  seduc 
tions  of  love,,  from  the  paradise  of  science  and  glory  which 
his  exalted  intellect  shared  with  the  angels.  Perhaps,  also, 
he  expected  from  day  to  day  that  Abelard,  conquered  by 
an  increasing  charm,  would  demand  of  him  the  hand  of  his 
pupil,  which  he  would  have  been  too  happy  to  accord.  In 
the  mean  time,  Abelard,  divided  between  his  passion  for 
Heloise  and  his  love  of  fame,  hesitated  to  declare  himself. 
He  feared  lest,  by  avowing  the  influence  of  earthly  beauty, 
he  should  sink  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  from  the  reputation 
for  purity  and  Platonic  self-command  which  an  ethereal 
philosophy  had  established  for  him  in  early  youth.  He  was 
unwilling  also  to  renounce,  by  marriage,  the  prospective 
dignities,  honors,  and  fortune  which  the  Church  held  out 
to  him,  and  which  he  had  already  propitiated  by  some  no- 
vitiatory  ceremonies.  His  disciples  no  longer  recognized 


HELOISE.  m 

their  master.  In  his  heart  love  combated  painfully  against 
his  genius.  His  friends  complained  loudly  of  his  decline : 
the  languor  of  his  passion  had  affected  his  eloquence  ;  the 
fire  of  his  soul  evaporated  in  sighs,  and  his  lessons  contained 
only  cinders.  He  felt  so  unlike  what  he  had  once  been, 
that  he  gave  up  unprepared  discourses,  in  which  his  lips 
reflected  nothing  but  the  image  and  name  of  Heloise.  He 
was  compelled  to  learn  by  heart  the  lectures  he  had  formerly 
extemporized,  and  to  repeat  his  own  compositions,  lest  he 
should  fall  in  public  estimation.  His  rivals  and  his  ene 
mies  triumphed.  He  was  pointed  at  with  the  finger  of 
scorn  as  a  wreck  of  himself;  quoted  as  a  reproach  and 
scandal  to  human  weakness,  and  trampled  under  foot  as  a 
deity  hurled  from  his  pedestal.  Heloise  was  more  afflict 
ed  than  Abelard  at  this  degradation  of  one  she  adored  for 
himself  alone.  She  entreated  him  to  sacrifice  her  to  his 
fame  ;  to  permit  her  to  adore  him  as  a  divinity,  who  re 
ceives  the  heart  and  incense  of  mortals,  without  other  in 
tercourse  with  his  worshipers  than  the  homage  which  they 
offer  him  ;  to  love  her  no  longer,  if  this  love  diminished 
his  reputation  by  a  single  ray  ;  or,  if  the  disinterested  af 
fection  of  Heloise  had  become  a  necessity  and  a  consolation 
to  his  existence,  to  reduce  her  to  the  condition  of  those 
women  despised  by  the  world,  whose  sentiments  are  equal 
ly  unconsecrated  by  religion  and  law — slaves  of  the  heart, 
never  liberated  by  the  title  of  wives.  The  contempt  of 
the  universe,  endured  for  Abelard,  was,  she  declared,  the 
only  glory  to  which  she  aspired.  Shame,  at  such  a  price, 
would  constitute  her  pride. 

Abelard,  after  lamentable  hesitation,  could  neither  de 
termine  to  accept  this  suicide  of  Heloise,  nor  openly  to 
declare  his  passion  before  the  world.  He  still  continued 
to  reside  under  the  roof  of  Fulbert.  Dastardly  at  the 
same  time  toward  affection  and  virtue,  he  floated  between 
two  weaknesses,  and  evinced  neither  the  courage  of  love 
nor  that,  of  glory.  In  this  instance,  as  in  all  others,  the 
heart  of  the  woman  was  manly,  the  heart  of  the  man  fern- 


H2  .  HELOISE. 

inine.  But  his  infatuation,  meanwhile,  nourished  itself 
upon  these  agonies.  Fulbert,  justly  irritated  by  a  silence 
which  resembled  contempt,  and  which  rendered  his  hos 
pitality  suspicious,  closed  his  doors  against  the  offender. 
This  separation  tore  the  heart  of  Heloise,  and  humiliated 
that  of  Abelard.  Neither  the  master  nor  the  scholar  could 
renounce  a  life  in  which  the  looks,  the  conversation,  the 
studies,  the  songs,  the  thoughts  of  both,  had  blended  two 
into  a  single  soul.  They  contrived  secret  meetings,  a 
mysterious  intercourse  with  which  Fulbert  was  deeply 
enraged.  Abelard  carried  Heloise  away,  and  conducted 
her  with  all  respect  to  Nantes,  to  his  paternal  mansion, 
where  he  confided  her  as  his  wife  to  the  affection  of  his 
own  sister.  Returning  immediately  to  Paris,  he  threw 
himself  at  the  feet  of  Fulbert,  implored  his  forgiveness, 
and  obtained  by  contrition  the  hand  of  his  niece.  Heloise, 
pardoned,  and  restored  at  once  to  her  uncle  and  her  lover, 
became  secretly  the  spouse  of  Abelard.  "  After  a  night 
passed  in  prayer,"  says  he,  "in  one  of  the  churches  of 
Paris,  on  the  following  morning  we  received  the  nuptial 
blessing  in  presence  of  the  uncle  of  Heloise  and  of  several 
mutual  friends.  We  then  retired,  without  observation  or 
noise,  that  this  union,  known  only  to  God  and  a  few  inti 
mates,  should  bring  neither  shame  nor  prejudice  to  my 
renown." 

The  newly-married  pair — their  happiness  unknown  to 
every  body — affected  thenceforth  to  be  seldom  seen  to 
gether,  and  labored  to  extinguish  all  preceding  rumors  of 
their  attachment.  The  world,  for  the  moment,  was  de 
ceived,  and  Abelard  enjoyed  together  the  delights  of  love 
and  the  return  of  his  reputation.  But  the  servants  of 
Fulbert,  necessarily  acquainted  with  his  secret  visits, 
noised  abroad  the  circumstance  of  the  marriage.  The 
envious  detractors  of  Abelard  triumphed  in  his  weakness, 
and  accused  him  of  having  sacrificed  philosophy,  elo 
quence,  and  fame  to  a  second  Delilah.  His  pride  took 
offense  :  he  denied  his  ties,  as  if  they  had  been  a  disgrace. 


HELOISE 


113 


The  generous  Heloise  herself,  preferring  the  glory  of  her 
lover  to  her  own  honor,  proclaimed  and  encouraged  the 
assertion  that  she  was  only  united  to  Abelard  by  admira 
tion  and  love,  and  cast  a  stain  upon  her  own  virtue  to  ex 
alt  the  virtue  of  her  husband.     These  reports,  so  offensive 
to  Fulbert,  induced  him  to  utter  bitter  and  merited  re 
proaches  against  his  niece,  whose  devoted  falsehood  had 
thus  dishonored  his  blood      Abelard,  dreading  the  resent 
ment  of  her  uncle,  snatched  her  once  more  from  the  guard 
ianship  of  Fulbert,  and  conveyed  her  to  Argenteuil,  a  vil 
lage  near  Paris,  where  he  placed  her  in  a  monastery  of 
women.     These  monasteries,  like  the  altars  of  antiquity, 
afforded  the  right  of  inviolable  sanctity  to  all  unmarried 
females  or  wives  who  passed  their  threshold.     Here  he 
persuaded  her  to  take  the  white  veil  of  a  novice,  without 
yet  pronouncing  the  irrevocable  vows.     He  devoted  him 
self  to  a  monastic  life  and  the  priesthood,  and,  as  soon  as 
he  was  invested  with  this  holy  character,  with  his  own 
hands  he  placed  on  Heloise  the  habit  of  a  professed  nun, 
cut  off  her  hair,  and  yielded  her  up  to  God,  having  neither 
the  courage  to  claim  her  as  his  wife,  nor  to  leave  her  in 
the  world,  which  he  had   renounced  forever.      Heloise, 
happy  in  giving  up  her  life  to  him  to  whom  she  had  al 
ready  abandoned  her  honor,  submitted  without  a  murmur, 
as  the  victim  who  voluntarily  places  herself  on  the  sacri 
ficial  altar.     Every  thing  was  acceptable  to  her — even  the 
punishment  she  underwent  by  the  election,  and  through 
the  love,  or,  rather,  through  the  pride  of  her  husband. 
The  gates  of  the  convent  of  Argenteuil  were  closed  upon 
the  Sappho  of  the  eleventh  century.     Beauty,  genius,  af 
fection,  all  were  buried  in  those  catacombs ;  and  during 
fifteen  years,  the  best  years  of  the  immured  sufferer,  nei 
ther  reproaches,  regrets,  nor  sighs  were  heard  from  within 
that  living  monument. 

Abelard,  free,  and  purified  in  the  eyes  of  his  followers, 
resumed  with  fresh  ardor  and  brilliancy  the  course  of  his 
lectures  and  the  empire  of  his  popularity  ;  but  the  anger 


114  HELOISE. 

of  Fulbert  brooded  over  vengeance.  Thrice  foiled  in  his 
tenderness  for  his  niece  by  the  seduction,  the  perfidy,  and 
baseness  of  Abelard,  he  saw  snatched  from  him  by  the 
same  hand  the  company  of  his  beloved  pupil,  the  reputa 
tion  of  his  family,  his  honor,  and  his  happiness.  He  had 
educated  with  so  much  solicitude  that  prodigy  of  her  sex, 
only  to  see  her  despised  by  the  selected  husband  to  whom 
he  had  resigned  her,  tainted  as  a  concubine,  repudiated, 
contemned  in  her  devoted  affection,  and  finally  shut  up  as 
a  penitent  in  a  monastery  :  cut  off  in  the  flower  of  her 
youth  from  the  number  of  the  living,  to  keep  away  false 
shame  from  the  forehead  of  an  ungrateful  seducer,  and 
condemned  to  feed  on  her  own  tears,  while  he  was  hailed 
by  the  acclamations  of  the  century.  "We  do  not  justify  the 
vindictive  feelings  of  an  outraged  father — we  only  endeav 
or  to  explain  them.  He  had  forgiven  all,  to  behold  He- 
loise  married  to  the  first  genius  of  his  age,  and  after  be 
ing  acknowledged  as  a  wife,  she  was  now  denied.  De 
spair  excited  hatred,  and  hatred  began  to  ponder  on  crime. 
The  gates  of  Abelard's  house  were  opened  one  night 
through  the  purchased  treachery  of  his  domestics  ;  execu 
tioners,  directed  and  paid  by  Fulbert,  surprised  him  in  his 
sleep  ;  they  overwhelmed  him  with  cruel  insults,  and  left 
him  degraded  by  his  punishment.  Humiliation  and  re 
morse,  worse  than  the  inflicted  revenge,  made  Abelard  de 
test  the  life  which  his  enemies  had  spared  as  an  addition 
al  pang.  The  light  of  day  became  hateful  to  him.  His 
despair  at  this  unpunished  outrage  equaled  the  vainglory 
by  which  he  had  been  carried  on  to  the  base  ingratitude 
of  sacrificing  Heloise  ;  his  only  remaining  object  was  to 
disappear  from  the  world  he  had  filled  with  his  renown, 
and  which  now  resounded  with  nothing  but  his  shame. 

"  I  called  to  mind  painfully,"  he  writes,  "  the  brilliant 
reputation  by  which  I  was  surrounded  on  the  eve  of  that 
fatal  day,  and  the  prompt  ignominy  by  which  my  glory 
was  extinguished.  I  acknowledged  the  just  chastisement 
of  Heaven — the  just  retaliation  by  which  the  man  I  had 


HELOISE.  115 


betrayed,  betrayed  me  in  his  turn.     I  already  heard  the 
malicious  exultations  of  my  enemies,  the  delight  of  my 
rivals  at  this  retributive  dispensation.     I  felt  that  I  could 
no  longer  appear  in  public  without  being  pointed  at  as  an 
object°of  ignominious  pity.     The  sense  of  my  degraded 
state  covered  me  with  such  confusion,  that,  I  am  forced  to 
confess,  shame  rather  than  pity  drove  me  into  the  solitude 
of  the  cloister.     I  wished,  however,  before  tearing  myself 
from  the  world,  to  remove  Heloise  from  it  irrevocably. 
By  my  direction  she  pronounced  the  eternal  vows.     Thus 
both  of  us,  on  the  same  day,  embraced  together  the  mo 
nastic  life,  she  at  Argenteuil,  I  in  the  abbey  of  St.  Denis. 
Moved  by  her  youth  and  beauty,  the  companions  of  He 
loise  endeavored  in  vain  to  win  her  from  the  sacrifice  she 
was  induced  to  consummate.      She  replied  (with  tears, 
shed  for  her  husband,  not  for  herself)  by  those  verses 
which  the  Roman  poet  places  in  the  mouth  of  Cornelia, 
the  widow  of  Pompey  the  Great :  '  Oh,  my  illustrious  part 
ner,  thou  whose  bed  I  was  not  worthy  of  partaking,  it  is 
my 'evil  destiny  which  weighs  upon  thine  !     Why,  wretch 
that  I  am,  have  I  formed  the  bonds  which  have  drawn  on 
thy  ruin !     Receive,  in  the  holocaust  of  thy  wife,  the  ex 
piation  of  the  misfortunes  my  love  has  brought  upon  thee  !' 
Having  pronounced  these  words,  broken  by  sighs,  Heloise 
rushed°to  the  altar,  as  if  precipitating  herself  into  an  abyss  ; 
she  seized  the  funeral  veil,  already  consecrated  by  the 
bishop,  and  dedicated  herself  from  that  moment,  before 
the  assembled  people,  to  the  service  of  the  Deity  who  re 
ceived  her  oath." 

Such  is  the  recital  of  the  sacrifice  of  Heloise  given  by 
Abelard  himself.  The  shadow  of  the  convent  inclosed  her 
for  many  years — a  concealed  but  an  unextinguished  flame. 
Abelard  carried  to  the  monastery  of  St.  Denis  his  inward 
uneasiness,  his  talents  strengthened  by  concentrated  study, 
his  ambition,  which  had  only  changed  its  object,  and  the 
intolerant  zeal  of  reformation,  by  which  new  proselytes 
too  often  expect  to  redeem  their  wanderings.  The  relax- 


HG  HELOISE. 

ed  monks  of  St.  Denis,  and  the  abbot  who  permitted  and 
shared  their  irregularities,  became  irritated  at  his  cen 
sures,  and  compelled  him  to  remove  his  severe  innovations 
to  a  neighboring  and  dependent  establishment  at  Deuil. 
He  there  resumed  his  pulpit  of  philosophy,  and  filled  once 
more  the  schools  and  the  Church  with  the  report  of  new 
doctrines  in  matters  of  faith.  The  Church  became  indig 
nant  at  his  boldness,  as  the  monks  had  been  offended  by 
his  reproofs.  Some  subtle  essay  on  the  Unity  and  Trin 
ity,  in  which  he  endeavored  to  explain  that  mystery  with 
out  appealing  to  faith  in  aid  of  human  reasoning,  sufficed 
as  a  pretext  to  the  enemies  leagued  against  this  active  in 
novator.  He  was  summoned  before  a  council  at  Soissons 
to  render  an  account  of  his  doctrines,  and  solemnly  con 
demned.  To  expiate  the  error,  he  was  shut  up  in  the 
cloistered  monastery  of  St.  Medard,  where  he  gave  him 
self  up  to  despair.  "  The  treachery  of  Fulbert,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "was  less  intolerable  than  this  fresh  outrage." 
The  legate  of  the  Pope,  more  impartial  and  tolerant,  speed 
ily  remitted  the  punishment.  On  returning  to  the  abbey 
of  St.  Denis,  he  found  the  monks  converted  to  implacable 
foes.  They  pronounced  him  an  enemy  of  the  state,  guilty 
of  high  treason  against  the  nation,  for  having  said  that  St. 
Dionysius,  bishop  of  Athens,  converted  by  St.  Paul,  was 
not  identical  with  the  St.  Dionysius,  first  bishop  of  Paris. 
Compelled  to  self-banishment,  notwithstanding  the  com 
plaisance  of  a  recantation,  to  which  he  submitted  to  dis 
arm  their  animosity,  he  fled  with  a  single  disciple  to  a 
desert  spot  in  Champagne.  "There,"  said  he,  "  on  the 
banks  of  a  narrow  river,  shaded  by  oaks,  and  bordered  by 
reeds,  called  the  Arduze,  I  constructed  with  my  own  hands 
a  small  oratory,  built  of  branches,  with  a  thatched  roof.  I 
was  alone,  and  could  cry  aloud  with  the  Prophet,  '  I  have 
fled,  I  have  removed  from  the  habitations  of  men,  and 
dwell  in  solitude.'" 

But  he  was  not  long  left  to  himself.     The  spirit  of  dis 
pute  and  the  love  of  novelty  were  at  that  time  so  strongly 


HELOISE. 


117 


excited  in  the  world,  that  those  who  possessed  the  word 
of  life  drew  after  them  whole  nations  of  followers  and  lis 
teners.  The  youth  of  the  age  thirsted  so  eagerly  for  truth, 
that  controversy  alone  seemed  a  step  toward  the  import 
ant  mystery,  and  from  the  shock  of  opposing  doctrines  they 
expected  the  bursting  forth  of  the  lightning  which  never 
came.  "  As  soon  as  my  retreat  was  discovered,"  says  Abe- 
lard,  "  my  disciples  crowded  round  me  from  every  quarter, 
to  erect  humble  cells  in  the  desert.  They  abandoned  soft 
beds  of  down  for  couches  of  leaves,  luxurious  viands  for 
coarse  vegetables :  it  was  thus  that,  according  to  St.  Je 
rome,  the  philosophers  of  antiquity  fled  from  cities,  gar 
dens,  rich  fields  and  shady  groves,  the  melody  of  birds, 
the  freshness  of  fountains,  the  murmuring  of  streams — 
from  all  that  could  charm  the  eyes  and  ears,  seduce  the 
senses,  or  enervate  virtue.  Even  so  the  sons  of  the  proph 
ets  lived  as  hermits  in  huts  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan, 
feeding  on  roots  and  herbs,  remote  from  towns  and  human 
passions.  My  followers  constructed  cells  on  the  banks  of 
the  Arduze  rather  after  the  fashion  of  anchorites  than 
pupils.  In  proportion  as  their  members  augmented,  their 
lives  became  more  studious  and  holy,  so  that  the  shame 
of  my  enemies  increased  with  my  reputation.  Neverthe 
less,  it  was  poverty  which  forced  me  to  re-establish  my 
school.  I  was  unaccustomed  to  dig  the  earth,  and  I  could 
not  humiliate  myself  to  beg  my  bread.  My  disciples  cul 
tivated  the  fields  and  built  the  cells.  Soon  they  became 
insufficient  to  contain  them.  .  Then  they  erected  a  vast 
edifice  of  timber  and  masonry,  which  I  called  after  the 
name  of  the  God  of  Consolation — The  Paraclete." 

But  the  enemies  of  Abelard  envied  him  even  the  wil 
derness.  They  saw,  or  affected  to  see,  in  the  name  of  the 
Consoling  Spirit,  to  whom  he  had  dedicated  his  monastery, 
a  sort  of  philosophic  invocation  to  the  one  Person  of  the 
Trinity,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  two.  St.  Bernard 
marked  him  out  for  the  vengeance  of  the  Church.  He 
was  obliged  to  abandon  the  desert  itself,  and  to  seek  at 


118  HELOISE. 

the  extremity  of  the  shores  of  Brittany,  among  the  rocks 
and  strands  of  the  ocean,  an  asylum  still  more  inaccessi 
ble  to  jealousy  and  persecution.  This  was  the  abbey  of 
St.  Gildas,  in  the  diocese  of  Vannes.  The  monks  who 
dwelt  there  had  degenerated  from  the  sanctity  of  earlier 
ages,  and  had  converted  their  convent  into  a  den  of  bar 
barism  and  vice.  The  rude  aspect  of  the  neighborhood 
was  exceeded  by  the  character  of  the  inhabitants.  The 
place  was  a  promontory,  incessantly  beaten  by  the  surges 
of  a  groaning  sea.  Mountains  of  foam  broke  over  the  re 
sounding  rocks,  and  on  a  coast  hollowed  into  vaults  and 
caverns  by  the  constant  action  of  the  waves,  which  buried 
themselves  as  in  yawning  gulfs,  and  then  rushed  back 
again  from  other  apertures,  like  torrents  of  lava  issuing 
from  a  volcano.  Perpendicular  cliffs  shut  out  the  sight 
of  the  land  below  from  the  abbey,  which  might  be  com 
pared  to  a  vessel  in  perpetual  shipwreck,  on  a  shore  inac 
cessible  to  pilots.  "  The  life  of  these  monks,"  says  Abelard, 
their  superior,  "was  dissolute  and  insubordinate.  The 
gates  of  the  abbey  were  ornamented  with  the  feet  of  stags, 
bears,  and  wild  boars,  the  trophies  and  emblems  of  their 
constant  avocations.  They  were  awakened  by  the  sound 
of  the  horn  and  the  barking  of  hounds.  Cruel  and  unre 
strained  in  their  licentious  habits,  and  constantly  at  war 
with  the  surrounding  nobles,  they  were  alternately  oppress 
ors  or  oppressed."  They  laughed  at  the  indignation  which 
Abelard  expressed  at  their  rude  manners,  until  their  ha 
tred  against  the  intruding  reformer  led  them  on  to  crime. 
Insulted,  threatened,  attacked  in  the  forests,  poisoned  even 
in  the  holy  chalice  of  the  sacrament,  with  difficulty  he  pre 
served  his  life  by  flight.  The  barons  of  the  district  snatch 
ed  him  from  the  steel  of  the  assassins.  He  sought  shelter 
in  a  spot  even  more  deserted  than  the  domains  of  the  ab 
bey,  and,  like  the  prophet  of  old,  called  upon  the  Lord 
from  the  abyss  of  his  calamity. 

Fifteen  years  passed  over  the  head  of  Abelard  in  these 
alternations  of  learning,  glory,  sanctity,  and  suffering,  dur- 


HELOISE.  119 

ing  which  he  bestowed  no  token  of  remembrance  on  the 
still  young  and  living  victim  he  had  buried  at  Argenteuil. 
Heloise  complained  neither  of  his  insensibility  nor  silence. 
The  neglect  and  contempt  of  her  husband  she  respected  as 
additional  virtues,  believing  that  earth,  heaven,  and  her 
own  feelings  were  worthy  only  to  be  sacrificed  to  this  first 
and  most  adored  of  men.     Abelard  remained  forever  the 
sole  object  of  worship  on  the  altar  she  had  erected  to  him 
in  her  heart.     All  her  sighs  ascended  to  Heaven  for  him, 
but  they  were  breathed  without  sound,  lest  an  uttered 
thought*  or  regret  should  scandalize  the  world  or  disturb 
his  sublime  contemplations.     The  gates  of  the  convent  of 
Argenteuil  divulged  no  particle  of  that  immeasurable  love 
which  survived  within  its  walls.     Persecution  burst  those 
gates.     Suger,  abbot  of  St.  Denis,  pretended  that  the  con 
vent  belonged  to  his  order,  and  drove  out  the  nuns  like  a 
flock  without  fold  or  shepherd.     Their  cry  of  distress  reach 
ed  Abelard.     'Whether  it  was  that  his  own  misfortunes  had 
softened  his  heart,  or  the  memory  of  early  happiness  had 
returned  full  upon  him,  as  it  often  does  in  the  evening  of 
life,  or  that  a  comparison  between  the  devotion  of  this  im 
molated  woman,  the  ingratitude  of  the  world,  and  the  emp 
tiness  of  glory,  had  lit  up  again  the  embers  of  an  ill-ex 
tinguished  affection,  Abelard  hastened  from  his  retreat  to 
the  succor  of  the  wandering  and  persecuted  Heloise.     He 
conducted  her  to  the  Paraclete  with  her  companions,  be 
stowed  on  her  the  convent,  of  which  she  became  abbess, 
and  often  visited  her,  to  relieve  by  his  presence  and  for 
tune  the  indigence  to  which  he  had  opened  an  asylum.     At 
the  age  of  fifty-eight,  clothed  in  the   sacerdotal  habit,  a 
spiritual  father  rather  than  a  carnal  husband,  the  world 
respected  the  union  of  two  tender  hearts,  whose  commu 
nity  of  fate  permitted  only  sorrow  for  the  past,  prayers 
for  the  present,  and  the  hope  of  eternal  happiness  for  the 
future. 

But  their  enemies  were  still  active,  and  disseminated 
odious  slanders   respecting  this  mystical  intercourse  be- 


120  HELOISE. 

tween  Abelard  and  his  former  wife.  To  put  an  end  to 
them,  he  retired  once  more  to  his  desert  in  Brittany.  He 
preferred  offering  his  life  anew  to  the  poniard  and  the 
poisoned  cup,  rather  than  expose  the  virtue  of  Heloise  to 
the  bitter  tongues  of  her  calumniators.  It  was  then  that 
he  wrote  the  memoirs  from  which  we  have  extracted  the 
principal  events  described  in  this  narrative.  The  volume, 
confided  to  friendship,  reached  the  eyes  of  Heloise.  The 
remembrances  it  excited  made  the  heart  speak  which  had 
remained  fifteen  years  in  silence.  An  epistolary  corre 
spondence,  affectionate  on  the  one  side,  cold  on  the  other, 
commenced  between  the  hapless  pair,  separated  equally 
by  the  hand  of  God  and  man.  The  Christian  Sappho,  in 
these  letters,  pours  forth,  with  irrepressible  passion,  the 
ardor  of  a  love  purified  by  sacrifice,  and  which  nothing 
earthly  could  extinguish,  as  its  sole  nourishment  proceeded 
from  heavenly  fire.  The  address  alone  of  these  letters 
comprises  a  hymn  of  infinite  tenderness,  as  it  betrays  the 
impassioned  hesitation  of  a  female  hand,  which  seeks,  finds, 
and  rejects  by  turns,  every  name  capable  of  expressing  the 
strongest  attachments  of  the  soul,  without  finding  one  suf 
ficiently  comprehensive,  and  which  ends  by  joining  them 
all  together,  lest  nature  should  retain  a  variety  of  affection 
which  she  has  not  acknowledged.  "  To  her  lord,  or  rather 
to  her  father,  his  slave,  his  daughter,  his  wife,  his  sister ; 
Heloise  to  Abelard!" 

"  Some  one,"  says  she,  in  her  first  letter,  after  having 
read  the  recital  of  their  loves  by  Abelard,  "  some  one  has 
recently  brought  me  by  chance  the  history  you  have  in 
trusted  to  a  friend.  As  soon  as  I  perceived,  by  the  first 
words  of  the  superscription,  that  it  came  from  you,  I  began 
to  read  it  with  eagerness,  even  greater  than  the  adoration 
I  still  cherish  for  the  writer.  What  I  have  lost  I  thought 
I  had  found  again,  as  if  the  beloved  image  could  reproduce 
itself  in  the  tracings  of  the  hand.  Sad  and  bitter,  oh,  my 
only  treasure,  are  the  lines  of  this  narrative,  which  de 
scribe  our  conversion  and  inexhaustible  misfortunes.  They 


HELOISE.  121 

can  not  be  read,  even  by  the  most  indifferent  person,  with 
out  exciting  tears." 

Then,  in  allusion  to  his  new  exile,  and  the  persecutions 
with  which  he  was  surrounded  at  St.  Gildas,  she  adds  : 
"  In  the  name  of  the  Savior  who  seems  still  to  protect  us, 
we,  who  are  his  humble  slaves,  as  we  are  yours,  we  im 
plore  you  to  tell  us  in  frequent  letters  of  the  dangers  by 
which  you  are  still  surrounded,  that  we,  who  are  bound 
only  to  you  in  the  world,  may  partake  your  grief  or  satis 
faction.  Usually,  to  suffer  with  the  afflicted  is  to  console 
him ;  these  letters  will  be  doubly  tender  to  us,  as  they 
will  bear  testimony  that  we  are  not  forgotten.  Oh,  how 
delightful  is  the  receipt  of  letters  from  absent  friends  !  If 
the  portraits  of  those  separated  by  distance  recall  their 
memory,  and  soften  regret  by  a  deceptive  solace,  how  much 
more  efficacious  are  letters  which  embody  and  declare  the 
living  stamp  of  the  soul  itself!  Thanks  be  to  God  that 
hatred  has  not  prevented  us  from  being  thus  still  present 
to  each  other." 

She  then  calls  upon  him,  by  the  cares  which  he  owes  as 
a  father  to  his  daughters  in  religion,  to  be  prodigal  of  let 
ters,  orders,  and  advice ;  but  we  easily  discover  that  un 
consciously  she  uses  a  pretext  to  take  upon  herself  the 
leading  part  in  this  acceptable  intercourse.  "  Think,"  she 
writes,  "  without  speaking  of  others,  think  of  the  immense 
debt  you  have  contracted  toward  me.  Perhaps,  then,  what 
you  owe  to  all  these  holy  women  together,  you  will  the 
more  readily  acquit  yourself  of  toward  one  who  lives  for 
you  alone.  And  why,"  she  continues,  with  a  jealous  and 
tender  reproach  for  so  many  years  of  oblivion  and  silence, 
"  why,  when  my  soul  is  bowed  down  with  anguish,  have 
you  not  endeavored  to  comfort  me,  in  absence  by  your  let 
ters,  in  presence  by  your  words  ?  This  was  a  duty  to 
which  you  were  called,  as  we  are  united  by  the  sacrament 
*  of  marriage  ;  and  your  conduct  toward  me  is  the  more 
blamable,  as,  the  universe  is  my  witness,  I  have  loved  you 
with  an  immense  and  imperishable  affection.  You  know, 

VOL.  I.— F 


122  HELOISE. 

sole  object  of  my  regard,  how  much  I  have  lost  in  losing 
you !  In  proportion  as  my  grief  is  great,  so  ought  to  be 
my  consolation.  From  no  other,  but  from  you  alone  do  I 
expect  it.  You  owe  it  to  me,  for  you  only  possess  the 
power  to  sadden,  rejoice,  or  calm  me  !  Have  I  not  implic 
itly  complied  with  your  wishes  ?  Have  1  not  sacrificed 
myself  to  obey  you  ?  I  have  even  done  more :  my  love 
has  carried  me  to  falsehood  and  suicide.  By  your  order, 
in  assuming  these  habits,  I  have  changed  my  heart,  to 
prove  that  you  were  its  absolute  sovereign. 

"  Never,  as  Heaven  is  my  witness,  have  I  sought  from 
you  aught  but  yourself!  Although  the  name  of  wife  was 
the  most  binding  and  holiest  of  titles,  any  other  would 
have  satisfied  my  heart.  The  more  I  humiliated  myself 
for  your  sake,  the  more  I  should  have  merited  a  tender  re 
turn,  and  the  less  I  should  have  fettered  your  genius  and 
injured  your  glory. 

"  Again,  I  call  on  Heaven  to  testify,  that  if  the  master 
of  the  world  had  thought  me  worthy  of  his  hand,  and  had 
offered  me  with  his  name  the  dominion  of  the  universe, 
the  title  of  your  slave  would  have  been  to  me  preferable 
to  that  of  empress  !  "What  kings  could  be  compared  to 
you  ?  What  country,  what  town,  what  village,  was  not 
impatient  to  behold  you  ?  Where  were  the  women  who 
did  not  sigh  to  look  on  you  ?  Where  was  the  queen  who 
envied  not  my  happiness  ? 

"  Were  you  not  endowed  with  two  gifts  which  irresisti 
bly  fascinated  the  female  heart  —  eloquence  and  song  ? 
By  these  faculties,  when  reposing  from  the  severer  studies 
of  philosophy,  you  composed  those  love  sonnets,  which, 
through  the  combined  charms  of  poetry  and  music,  have 
caused  our  names  to  be  repeated  by  every  mouth.  Yes, 
the  name  of  Heloise  has  been  heard  in  many  lands,  and 
has  excited  much  jealousy  when  coupled  with  yours. 
And  by  what  rare  perfections  of  mind  and  body  was  your' 
youth  adorned  !  I  hnve  injured  you,  and  yet  you  know  I 
was  innocent.  Tell  me  only  why,  since  you  have  chosen 


HELOISU.  123 

to  immure  me  in  a  convent,  you  have  punished  me  by  neg 
lect  and  oblivion — by  depriving  me  of  your  presence,  and 
even  of  your  letters  ?  Tell  me,  if  you  dare  to  answer  the 
question  ?  Alas  !  I  know,  and  the  world  suspects  the  rea 
son  ;  your  affection  was  less  pure,  less  disinterested  than 
mine.  Since  you  have  ceased  to  desire  a  profane  happi 
ness,  you  have  ceased  to  love. 

"  Comply,  I  beseech  you,  with  my  request ;  it  is  easy, 
and  will  cost  you  little.  Speak  to  me  at  least  from  a  dis 
tance  by  those  words  which  restore  the  illusion  of  your 
presence.  I  thought  I  deserved  much  from  you,  when, 
still  in  youth,  I  embraced,  at  your  desire,  the  austerities  of 
the  cloister.  What  recompense  have  I  looked  for  from 
God,  for  whose  love  I  have  done  less  than  I  have  for 
yours  ?  When  you  have  advanced  toward  Heaven,  I  have 
followed  in  your  track.  As  if  you  had  remembered  the 
wife  of  Lot,  who  turned  back  and  looked  behind  her,  you 
thought  it  necessary,  when  you  quitted  the  world  yourself, 
to  bind  me  equally  by  monastic  vows.  Alas !  you  have 
misjudged  my  character.  I  have  mourned  and  blushed  for 
this  proceeding.  Was  it  necessary  to  drive  me,  when  I 
was  ready  to  follow  you,  even  to  perdition  ?  My  heart 
was  with  you,  not  with  myself.  Let  it  remain  yours,  I 
conjure  you,  which  it  will  forever,  if  you  listen  to  my  pray 
er,  and  return  me  tenderness  for  tenderness.  Formerly, 
the  purity  of  the  motives  which  bound  me  to  you  were 
open  to  suspicion  ;  but  does  not  the  end  prove  the  nature 
of  my  love  from  the  beginning  ?  I  have  severed  myself 
from  every  earthly  enjoyment ;  of  worldly  blessings  I  have 
reserved  but  one,  the  right  of  considering  myself  forever 
yours. 

"  I  conjure  you,  in  the  name  of  that  Deity  to  whom  you 
have  devoted  yourself,  give  me  as  much  of  your  presence 
as  is  permitted  ;  write  to  me  letters  of  consolation,  fortified 
by  which,  I  may  increase  my  ardor  in  the  service  of  Heav 
en.  When  you  looked  for  profane  gratification,  you  ad 
dressed  me  in  frequent  epistles,  which  taught  the  name 


124  HELOISE. 

of  Heloise  to  many  lips,  and  made  those  syllables  familiar 
in  many  places.  To  raise  my  soul  to  God,  can  you  not 
exert  the  power  which  you  formerly  exercised  to  excite 
earthly  feelings  ?  Think  of  what  I  ask !  I  finish  this 
long  letter  by  a  single  sentence — My  all,  my  sole  posses 
sion,  Adieu !" 

Moved  by  these  entreaties,  Abelard  at  length  broke 
through  the  silence  of  many  years.  "  Oh,  my  sister,"  said 
he,  addressing  his  wife, "  you  who  were  so  dear  to  me  in  the 
world,  who  are  a  thousand  times  more  cherished  in  Christ, 
I  send  you  the  prayer  you  have  demanded  with  such  im 
portunity.  Offer  up  to  God,  with  your  companions,  a  hol 
ocaust  of  invocation,  to  expiate  our  heavy  and  innumera 
ble  faults,  to  charm  away  the  dangers  which  beset  me  at 
every  moment."  He  then  proceeds  to  a  long  and  cold  dis 
sertation  on  the  efficacy  of  collective  prayer  from  commu 
nities  of  nuns.  At  the  close  of  the  letter,  love  seems  to 
have  betrayed  him  into  a  last  wish,  which  postpones,  un 
til  death,  the  reunion  so  vainly  hoped  for  during  life. 

"  Oh,  my  sister,"  he  exclaims,  "  if  God  should  deliver 
me  into  the  hands  of  my  enemies,  if  they  put  me  to  death, 
or  if,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  I  reach  the  common 
end  of  all  men,  let  my  body,  wherever  it  is  buried  or  aban 
doned,  be  transported  to  your  cemetery,  that  you,  my  daugh 
ters,  my  sisters  in  Jesus  Christ,  having  my  tomb  ever  be 
fore  your  eyes,  may  feel  called  upon  to  intercede  for  me 
more  incessantly  by  constant  prayers.  For  a  soul  afflicted 
by  so  many  calamities,  and  penitent  for  so  many  errors,  I 
know  not  where  to  find  a  resting-place  on  earth  more  safe 
and  salutary  than  that  which  is  dedicated  to  The  Consol 
ing  Spirit,  and  which  so  well  deserves  the  name.  They 
were  women  who,  careful  of  the  entombing  of  the  Savior, 
embalmed  him  with  perfumes,  and  watched  around  his 
sepulchre.  Thus  they  were  the  first  who  received  conso 
lation." 

With  the  exception  of  this  involuntary  return  of  love 
after  death,  the  letters  of  Abelard  are  dry,  cold,  and  un- 


HELOISE.  125 

feeling.     They  breathe  exclusive  selfishness,  while  those 
of  Heloise  contain  no  thought  but  of  him. 

"  To  my  only  thought  after  Jesus — to  my  only  hope  next  to 
the  Savior,"  thus  she  addresses  him,  "  it  is  you  alone  who 
will  celebrate  our  obsequies,  you  who  will  dismiss  to  the 
Almighty   those    you   have    assembled  in  his   presence. 
Surely  God  will  not  permit  us  to  survive  you ;  but  should 
you  die  before  us,  we  shall  think  rather  of  following  than 
of  burying  you,  since,  destined  so  soon  to  the  grave  our 
selves,  we  shall  want  the  strength  to  prepare  your  tomb. 
If  1  lose  you,  what  hope  remains  to  me  ?     How  shall  I 
longer  bear  this  pilgrimage  of  life,  in  which  I  am  still  sus 
tained  by  nothing  but  the  thought  that  you  partake  it  with 
me  ?     Am  I  not  unfortunate  above  all  precedent  ?     Raised 
by  you  above  the  level  of  my  sex,  have  I  only  reached  this 
high  renown  to  be  precipitated  from  unmeasured  felicity 
to  unparalleled  disaster  ?     We  lived  in  chastity— you  in 
Paris,  I  at  Argenteuil ;  we  separated  to  devote  ourselves 
entirely — you  to  your  studies,  I  to  prayer  with  the  holy 
sisterhood  who  surround  me.     During  this  irreproachable 
life,  the  hand  of  crime  was  permitted  to  reach  you.     Ah  ! 
why  did  not  the  blow  fall  on  both  together  ?     Both  were 
guilty,  but  you  alone  have  borne  the  expiation ;  the  least 
culpable  has  received  the  punishment.     What  you  have 
suffered  for  a  moment,  I  ought  to  have  endured  for  life ! 
If  I  must  avow  the  weakness  of  my  soul,  I  search  in  vain 
for  repentance  there.     My  happiness  was  too  supreme  to 
be  rooted  out  from  memory,  or  recollected  with  horror. 
In  sleep,  even  in  the  midst  of  devotional  ceremonies,  the 
periods,  the  places,  the  incidents  of  our  blissful  lives  pre 
sent  themselves  to  my  imagination.     They  call  me  holy 
who  know  not  how  I  regret  the  past.     I  am  praised  by 
men,  but  ah !  how  censurable  in  the  eyes  of  God,  who 
reads  all  hearts  !     In  every  action  of  my  life,  you  well 
know,  I  have  feared  your  anger  beyond  that  of  God  him 
self.     Think  not  too  well  of  me,  and  never  cease  to  inter 
cede  for  me  in  your  prayers." 


126  HELOISE. 

In  the  midst  of  an  elaborate  dissertation  on  "  The  Can 
ticle  of  Canticles,"  Abelard  introduced  some  touching  sen 
tences  in  his  answer.  "  Why,"  said  he  to  Heloise,  "  do  you 
reproach  me  with  having  made  you  a  participator  in  my 
sorrows,  when  you  yourself  have  forced  me  to  this  by  your 
solicitations  ?  Is  it  possible  that  you  could  ever  be  happy 
while  I  am  miserable  1  Would  you  wish  to  be  the  com 
panion  of  my  enjoyment,  and  not  partake  my  anguish  ? 
Can  you  desire  that  I  should  precede  you  to  heaven — you, 
who  would  have  followed  me  to  the  lowest  depths  of  per 
dition  ?"  He  then  recalls  in  order  his  past  iniquities,  and 
commands  Heloise  to  return  thanks  to  the  Creator  for  the 
punishments  which  have  assailed  and  changed  him.  "  You, 
0  Lord,  have  joined  and  divided  us,"  he  thus  concludes  ; 
"  those  whom  for  a  time  you  have  separated  in  this  world, 
we  beseech  you  to  reunite  forever  in  the  world  to  come  !" 
At  last,  we  find  the  husband  once  more  in  the  saint. 

Persecution  drove  Abelard  back  to  the  Paraclete.  The 
odious  insinuations  of  his  enemies  forced  him  from  that 
sanctuary  a  second  time.  "  How  is  it,"  he  exclaimed  in 
his  despair,  "  that  suspicion  still  clings  to  me,  when  misfor 
tunes,  years,  and  the  holiness  of  the  monastic  profession 
are  my  securities  against  crime  ?  I  suffer  more  at  present 
from  calumny  than  I  did  formerly  from  outrage." 

But  his  persecutors  thought  to  attack  him  more  severely 
in  his  glory  than  in  his  love.  His  writings,  which  increased 
daily,  alarmed  Rome  herself,  and  were  considered  heretical, 
since  they  spread  forth  the  first  dawn  of  freedom  in  discus 
sion.  St.  Bernard,  the  censor,  reformer,  and  avenger  of 
the  Church  in  France,  set  himself  vehemently  in  opposition 
to  these  new  tenets.  Cited  before  the  Council  of  Sens  to 
answer  for  his  opinions,  Abelard  preserved  silence.  St. 
Bernard  denounced  his  contumacy  as  an  additional  offense. 

"This  man,"  said  he,  addressing  the  sovereign  pontiff, 
"  boasts  that  he  can  explain  by  reason  the  most  profound 
mysteries.  He  mounts  up  to  heaven,  and  descends  to  the 
lowest  abyss  ;  he  is  great  in  his  own  estimation.  He  scru- 


HELOISK 


127 


tinizes  the  Divine  Majesty,  and  disseminates  errors.  One 
of  his  treatises  has  been  given  to  the  fire.  Accursed  be 
the  hand  that  gathers  up  the  fragments !  Necessity  de 
mands  a  swift  remedy  for  this  contagion,  for  the  man  has 
many  followers.  He  preaches  a  new  gospel  to  the  people 
— a  new  faith  to  the  nations  of  the  earth — all  is  contradic 
tion  !  The  exterior  form  of  piety  is  displayed  by  a  modest 
carriage  and  humble  garments.  His  disciples  transform 
themselves  into  angels  of  light,  while  they  are,  in  fact,  so 
many  Satans !  This  Goliath  (thus  he  denominates  Abelard) 
has  proposed  to  sustain  against  me  perverse  dogmas.  I 
refuse  to  argue  because  I  am  a  child  in  the  truth,  and  he 
is  a  great  and  terrible  opponent.  But  you,  successor  of  the 
Apostles,  you  alone  will  judge  whether  he  ought  to  find  a 
refuge  on  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  Consider  what  you  owe 
to  yourself!  Why  have  you  been  elevated  to  the  throne, 
if  not  to  root  out  and  plant  anew  ?  If  God  has  permitted 
schism  to  rear  its  head  in  your  days,  is  it  not  that  schism 
may  be  overthrown  ?  Behold,  the  foxes  will  spoil  and  tear 
up  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  if  you  suffer  them  to  increase 
and  multiply.  If  you  strike  them  not,  they  will  bring 
trouble  and  despair  to  your  successors.  If  you  hesitate  to 
destroy  them,  we  will  destroy  them  ourselves."  Thus  spoke 
this  all-potent  tribune  of  the  Church  of  France,  to  whom 
statues  are  erected  after  an  interval  of  eight  centuries.  A 
summons  so  imperious,  supported  by  the  popularity  of  St. 
Bernard,  could  not  fail  to  be  complied  with  by  Rome,  al 
though  the  Pope,  of  a  gentle  and  indulgent  nature,  was 
unwilling  to  strike  a  teacher  whose  sincerity  in  faith  he 
acknowledged,  while  he  admired  his  genius.  Abelard  was 
condemned  to  perpetual  seclusion  in  a  cloistered  monastery. 
This  sentence,  officially  promulgated  in  France,  after  con 
siderable  delay,  but  foreseen  by  the  victim  of  it,  removed 
him  for  the  last  time  from  the  quiet  security  of  the  Para 
clete  and  the  tears  of  Heloise.  He  bade  an  eternal  adieu 
to  the  retreat  which  he  had  first  peopled  with  enthusiastic 
disciples,  afterward  with  pious  maidens,  and  which  had  so 


128  HELOISE. 

often  sheltered  him  from  the  storms  of  his  troubled  exist 
ence.  Alone  and  on  foot  he  traveled  toward  the  Alps,  to 
implore  from  the  justice  of  the  Pope  an  asylum  against  his 
persecutor.  In  his  journey  he  passed  by  Cluny,  at  that  time 
a  sovereign  abbey,  which  administered  hospitality  without 
distinction  to  popes,  kings,  pilgrims,  and  mendicants,  on' 
their  journey  from  Paris  to  Rome. 

This  celebrated  monastery,  of  the  order  of  St.  Benedict, 
was  founded  by  William,  duke  of  Aquitaine,  who  possessed 
an  extensive  territory  in  the  province  of  Maconnais.  Wil 
liam,  according  to  the  practice  of  the  princes  and  nobles  of 
his  time,  expected  to  purchase  eternal  bliss  by  a  gift  of 
land  to  the  cenobites,  who,  in  return,  offered  up  perpetual 
prayers  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  The  monks,  whom 
he  had  commissioned  to  seek  out  the  fittest  place  for  the 
site  of  the  intended  monastery,  having  traversed  the  hills 
and  valleys  of  his  domains,  fixed  their  choice  upon  a  deep 
and  narrow  defile,  which  runs  behind  the  chain  of  mount 
ains  of  the  Saone,  between  Dijon  and  Macon.  "  A  place," 
as  they  described  it,  "  shut  out  from  all  communication 
with  the  world,  and  so  full  of  silence,  repose,  and  peace, 
that  it  presents  in  some  manner  an  image  of  celestial  tran 
quillity."  These  recluses  possessed  a  natural  instinct  for 
solitude  and  contemplation.  At  that  time  the  hills  were 
covered  with  thick  forests,  the  growth  of  centuries,  which 
bounded  the  horizon,  and  concealed  the  sun  ;  the  waters 
of  the  mountain  torrents,  overflowing  the  flat  lands,  formed 
lakes,  ponds,  and  marshes,  bordered  by  reeds.  The  only 
track  that  led  to  this  basin  of  water  and  foliage  was  the 
narrow  path  hollowed  out  by  the  feet  of  mules.  Above 
the  summit  of  the  woods  arose  the  smoke  of  a  few  thinly- 
scattered  cottages  inhabited  by  hunters,  fishermen,  and 
wood-cutters.  The  gorge  of  Cluny  was  the  Thebais  of  the 
Gauls. 

"  On  this  spot,"  said  the  monks  to  the  Duke  of  Aquitaine, 
"we  will  erect  our  monastery." 

"  No,"  replied  the  duke,  "  it  is  a  valley  too  much  over- 


HELOISE. 


shadowed  by  thick  forests,  and  full  of  fallow-deer.  The 
hunters  and  their  dogs,  with  their  shrill  cries  and  barking, 
will  disturb  your  silence." 

"  Then  drive  away  the  dogs,  and  introduce  the  monks," 
replied  the  holy  men. 

William  consented;  the  dogs  disappeared,  and  the 
monks  supplied  their  places.  In  a  few  centuries,  owing 
to  the  extent  and  fertility  of  the  land,  the  pious  disinterest 
edness  which  made  many  dying  penitents  bequeath  their 
fortunes  to  the  monastery,  and  the  skillful  government  of 
the  abbots,  who  proved  themselves  good  worldly  states 
men,  the  desert  of  Cluny  beheld  rising  in  lofty  elevation, 
where  once  its  forests  stood,  another  forest  of  steeples, 
cloisters,  domes,  vaulted  arches,  Gothic  battlements,  and 
Byzantine  windows,  the  ornaments  and  defenses  of  a  ba 
silica  equal  in  extent  to  the  largest  ecclesiastical  edifices 
of  imperial  Rome. 

The  river  which  formerly  inundated  the  valley,  now  in 
closed  within  beds  of  stone,  or  drained  off  into  ponds  stock 
ed  with  fish,  conveyed  fertility  to  extensive  meadows, 
whitening  with  flocks  and  herds.  A  large  town  adjoined 
the  abbey,  under  the  protection  of  the  monks.  Popes  had 
issued  from  its  cells  to  rule  the  Christian  world  ;  monarchs 
came  to  visit,  endow,  and  bestow  privileges  on  this  chosen 
sanctuary.  Councils  were  assembled  there,  and  the  ab 
bots  ranked  as  sovereign  princes.  Pilgrims  from  all  quar 
ters  of  the  globe  besieged  the  gates,  and  were  received 
with  hospitality.  At  the  time  of  Abelard's  arrival,  the 
monastery  was  governed  by  Peter  the  Venerable,  a  man 
supremely  eminent  in  science,  poetry,  renown,  and  virtue. 
A  living  contrast  to  St.  Bernard,  the  abbot  of  Cluny  per 
sonified  the  true  charity  of  religion,  while  the  other  em 
bodied  only  the  proselytism  and  terror.  Peter  the  Vener 
able  had  been  elected  while  still  young  to  the  command 
of  the  order,  through  the  reputation  of  his  talents  and  the 
influence  of  his  character— a  poet,  a  philosopher,  an  au 
thor,  a  negotiator ;  a  statesman  in  piety,  and  a  religious 

F2 


130  HELOISE. 

man  in  politics — he  was  another  Abelard,  but  divested  of 
his  pride  and  weakness.  The  impress  of  his  soul  was 
stamped  upon  his  features.  He  was  tall  and  slender  in 
figure,  slow  of  step,  beautiful  in  countenance,  of  a  gentle 
aspect,  a  composed  expression,  and  an  affable  demeanor. 
Habitually  silent,  when  he  spoke  he  became  eloquent  and 
persuasive.  Placed,  as  we  may  say,  by  the  elevation  of 
his  thoughts,  on  an  intermediate  point  between  heaven 
and  earth,  he  divided  his  attention  equally  between  things 
temporal  and  things  eternal.  Representing  the  holiness 
of  true  Christianity,  he  attracted  thousands  toward  religion 
by  the  charm  of  gentleness,  instead  of  driving  them  away 
by  the  terror  of  severity.  The  memory  of  his  virtues  was 
so  indelibly  impressed,  that  it  has  been  handed  down  for 
eight  centuries,  from  father  to  son,  in  the  town  and  valley 
of  Cluny.  A  few  years  since,  a  tomb  having  been  discov 
ered  by  chance,  and  supposed  to  be  his,  the  women  and 
children  eagerly  contended  for  the  dust  it  contained,  urged 
by  a  traditional  affection  acknowledged  throughout  the 
district.  Peter  the  Venerable  had  held  disputes  with  St. 
Bernard,  whose  practice  it  was  to  quarrel  with  all  he  was 
unable  to  control.  The  abbot  of  Cluny  loved  Abelard  for 
his  poetry,  his  eloquence,  and,  above  all,  for  his  misfor 
tunes.  Heloise  he  looked  upon  as  the  wonder  of  the  age 
and  the  ornament  of  the  sanctuary.  He  had  visited  the 
Paraclete,  rendered  famous  by  the  piety  and  tears  of  this 
widow  of  a  living  husband,  and  carried  back  from  the  in 
terview  edification,  enthusiasm,  and  piety,  which  led  him 
to  commence  and  continue  with  her  an  epistolary  corre 
spondence.  Such  was  the  man  of  whom  the  fugitive  Abe 
lard  solicited  the  shelter  of  a  night's  lodging. 

He  arrived,  broken  down  by  sorrow,  fatigue,  and  sick 
ness,  at  the  gates  of  the  abbey.  Prompted  by  humility, 
he  wished  to  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  Peter  the  Ven 
erable,  who  received  him.  in  his  arms,  and  opened  to  him 
his  house  and  his  heart.  Abelard,  overpowered  by  a  re 
ception  to  which  the  persecutions  of  St.  Bernard  had  dis- 


HELOISE. 


131 


accustomed  him,  related  his  recent  vicissitudes,  his  sor 
rows,  his  condemnation  to  the  cloister,  and  his  resolve  to 
proceed  on  foot  to  Rome,  to  throw  himself  on  the  justice 
and  commiseration  of  the  sovereign  pontiff,  formerly  his 
personal  friend.  The  Abbot  of  Cluny  expressed  warm 
compassion  for  his  misfortunes,  and  encouraged  his  confi 
dence  in  the  Pope.  But,  mistrusting  the  strength  of  his 
guest,  weakened  as  it  was  by  grief  and  fear,  apprehensive 
lest  this  glory  of  France  should  perish  miserably  on  some 
snow-track  while  begging  his  bread  across  the  Alps,  or 
that  he  might  fall  a  prisoner  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies 
beyond  the  mountains,  he  retained  him  at  the  monastery 
under  a  variety  of  pious  pretexts.  During  this  interval, 
Peter  the  Venerable  addressed  the  Pope  privately,  in  a 
letter  full  of  the  tenderest  and  most  disinterested  zeal  for 
his  friend.  "  The  illustrious  Abelard,"  said  he  in  this  epis 
tle,  "  well  known  to  your  Holiness,  has  passed  some  days 
with  me  at  Cluny,  coming  from  France.  I  questioned  him 
as  to  where  he  was  going.  '  I  am  pursued,'  replied  he, 
'  by  the  persecutions  of  certain  men,  who  have  applied  to 
me  the  name  of  heretic,  which  I  reject  and  detest.  I  have 
appealed  from  their  sentence  to  the  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Head  of  the  Church,  and  in  that  sanctuary  I  seek  protec 
tion  against  my  enemies.'  I  have  approved  this  project 
of  Abelard,  and  have  strongly  encouraged  him  to  repair  to 
your  presence,  assuring  him  that  neither  justice  nor  kind 
ness  would  be  withheld  from  such  a  suppliant,  seeing  that 
both  are  freely  accorded  to  the  obscure  pilgrim  or  the  per 
fect  stranger.  I  added  also  that  he  might  rely  on  indul 
gence  for  unintentional  errors.  While  he  rested  at  the 
abbey,  the  Abbot  of  Clairvaux  arrived  here.  We  concert 
ed  together  in  all  Christian  charity  how  to  reconcile  Abe 
lard,  my  guest,  with  the  Abbot  Bernard,  who  has  reduced 
him  to  this  necessity  of  appealing  to  your  Holiness.  I 
have  used  every  effort  in  my  power  to  bring  about  this 
accommodation.  I  have  advised  Abelard  to  expunge  from 
his  writings,  under  the  supervision  of  Bernard  himself,  and 


132  HELOISE. 

other  sagacious  men,  every  passage  that  offends  against 
the  scruples  of  the  true  faith.  Abelard  has  given  his  con 
sent  to  this.  From  that  moment  the  reconciliation  has 
been  effected  by  my  agency,  but  much  more  through  the 
inspiration  of  Providence.  Abelard,  our  guest,  has  bidden 
farewell  forever  to  the  agitation  of  controversy  and  the 
schools  ;  he  has  selected  Cluny  for  his  last  and  permanent 
residence.  I  implore  you,  then — I,  the  most  humble  and 
devoted  of  your  'servants — the  entire  community  of  the  ab 
bey  implores  you,  and  Abelard  himself  joins  in  the  en 
treaty — by  him,  by  us,  by  the  messengers  who  bear  these 
letters,  by  the  letters  they  carry,  we  all  beseech  you  to 
allow  him  to  exhaust  at  Cluny  the  few  days  which  remain 
to  him  of  his  life  and  his  old  age  ;  and  few  indeed  those 
days  are  likely  to  number.  We  all  conjure  you  not  to 
allow  persecution  from  any  quarter  to  disturb  or  drive  him 
forth  again  from  this  house,  under  the  roof  of  which,  like 
the  sparrow  which  seeks  a  nest,  he  rejoices  to  have  found 
an  asylum,  even  as  the  dove  rejoiced  when  it  found  a  dry 
spot  on  which  to  rest  its  foot.  Refuse  not  your  holy  pro 
tection  to  the  man  whom  you  once  distinguished  by  the 
title  of  your  friend  !"  Such  a  touching  appeal  of  friend 
ship,  and  the  living  memory  of  the  enthusiastic  regard 
which  he  had  formerly  felt  for  the  orator  and  poet  of  his 
youth,  could  not  fail  to  reach  the  heart  of  the  Pope.  He 
granted  to  the  prayer  of  Peter  the  Venerable  the  pardon 
and  protection  which  he  implored  for  Abelard.  In  his 
nominal  imprisonment,  Abelard  had  for  superior  and  jailer 
the  most  tender  and  compassionate  of  friends. 

Heloise,  satisfied  as  to  the  worldly  destiny  of  her  hus 
band,  watched  at  a  distance,  by  letters  and  prayers,  over 
his  declining  health  and  immortal  prospects  The  last 
days  of  this  distinguished  man,  who  had  inspired  and  lost 
the  admiration  of  the  world,  but  who  had  still  preserved 
the  undivided  tenderness  of  a  woman  and  the  attachment 
of  a  friend,  passed  over  in  poetical  and  religious  conver 
sations  with  Peter  the  Venerable,  in  the  contemplation  and 


HELOISE. 


133 


study  of  futurity,  in  the  contempt  of  those  vanities  which 
had  not  consoled  him  for  the  devotion  of  a  single  heart, 
and  in  the  hope  of  the  happy  reunion  which  Heloise  as 
sured  him  would  be  assigned  to  them  in  Heaven. 

At  the  extremity  of  a  desert  alley,  and  at  the  foot  of  in 
closing  walls,  flanked  by  the  towers  of  the  monastery ;  on 
the  margin  of  extensive  meadows  closed  in  by  woods,  close 
to  the  murmuring  stream,  and  the  reeds  of  a  dried-up  marsh, 
through  which  the  breezes  whistle  drearily,  there  is  still 
existing  an  enormous  lime-tree,  under  the  shade  of  which 
Abelard  was  accustomed  to  sit  and  meditate,  with  his  face 
turned  toward  the  direction  of  the  Paraclete.  The  monks, 
proud  of  having  afforded  the  hospitality  of  their  cloisters 
to  the  most  shining  light  of  the  eleventh  century,  sedulous 
ly  preserved  this  tradition.  The  fury  of  the  French  Rev 
olution,  which  destroyed  so  much,  respected  this  lime-tree 
and  one  or  two  of  the  spires  of  the  monastery.  The  last 
of  the  ecclesiastics  related  the  legend  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  town,  who  tell  it  again  to  accidental  visitors.  I  my 
self  possess,  under  a  lime  of  three  hundred  years  old,  in  my 
garden  at  Saint-Point,  the  bench  of  gray  stone,  sonorous  as 
a  bell,  on  which,  according  to  the  tradition,  Abelard  sat  un 
der  the  more  ancient  tree  of  Cluny.  I  have  also  carried 
from  thence  a  large  table  of  the  same  stone,  on  which  he 
reposed  his  head  while  composing  his  hymns,  or  meditating 
over  his  misfortunes  and  his  love. 

His  soul,  consumed  by  the  fire  of  passion  and  the  flame 
of  genius,  robbed  of  happiness  by  evil  destiny,  and  of  fame 
by  persecution,  exhausted  itself  before  he  reached  an  ad 
vanced  period  of  life.  He  expired  in  the  arms  of  his  friend 
two  years  and  a  few  months  after  he  had  crossed  the  hos 
pitable  threshold  of  Cluny. 

The  disinterested  attachment  of  Peter  the  Venerable 
ceased  not  until  he  had  superintended  the  interment  of 
his  friend.  Under  the  instinct  of  truly  divine  charity,  he 
became  an  accomplice  in  the  love  which  suffering,  repent 
ance,  and  tears  had  rendered  sacred  in  his  eyes.  He  felt 


134  HELOISE. 

that  Abelard  above,  and  Heloise  on  earth,  demanded  of 
him  the  last  consolation  of  a  reunion  in  the  grave.  He 
could  not  persuade  himself  that  it  was  culpable  to  descend 
from  the  height  of  his  sanctity,  and  participate  in  the  weak 
ness  or  illusion  which,  while,  it  was  unable  to  blend  two 
lives  into  one,  might  at  least  be  permitted  to  mingle  the 
mortal  dust  which  once  was  animated.  But,  dreading 
even  the  shadow  of  scandal,  he  wrapped  up  in  secrecy  the 
pious  theft  which  he  himself  was  about  to  commit  on  the 
cemetery  of  St.  Marcel,  an  oratory  belonging  to  the  abbey, 
in  which  Abelard  was  interred. 

He  confided  to  no  deputy  the  care  of  accompanying  the 
remains  of  the  deceased,  and  of  remitting  them  to  the 
guardianship  of  Heloise.  No  hands  were  worthy  of  touch 
ing  this  sacred  deposit  except  those  of  a  saint  and  a  wife. 
He  rose  in  the  night,  exhumed  the  coffin,  conveyed  it  to 
the  Paraclete,  and  inscribed  in  verse  the  epitaph  of  his 
friend.  "  The  Plato  of  our  age"  (thus  he  designates  him 
in  these  lines),  "  equal  or  superior  to  his  predecessors,  sov 
ereign  master  of  thought,  acknowledged  throughout  the 
universe  for  the  variety  and  extent  of  his  genius,  he  sur 
passed  all  men  in  the  strength  of  his  imagination  and  the 
power  of  his  eloquence.  His  name  was  Abelard!"  The 
pious  abbot  then  assumed  the  paternal  charge  of  an  only 
son,  who  had  been  born  to  the  unhappy  pair  during  their 
temporary  union,  and  before  they  had  pronounced  the  mo 
nastic  vows. 

Heloise,  having  received  with  tears  the  coffin  of  Abelard, 
shut  herself  up  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Paraclete,  in  the 
vault,  where  she  assumed  her  conjugal  place  by  the  couch 
of  death.  Peter  the  Venerable  himself  performed  the  fu 
neral  rites,  and  departed  after  he  had  placed  the  mortal 
relics  of  his  friend  under  the  guardianship  of  an  unextin- 
guishable  love.  This  mutual  reverence  for  the  memory 
of  the  same  object  drew  still  closer  the  ties  of  admiration 
and  gratitude  which  attached  the  Abbot  of  Cluny  to  the 
widow  of  the  Paraclete.  Heloise,  who  longed  to  be  as- 


HELOISE. 


135 


sured  of  the  eternal  happiness  of  Abelard  as  passionately 
as  she  had  mourned  his  earthly  sorrows,  entreated  from 
the  venerable  father  a  written  attestation  that  her  anx 
ious  desires  were  accomplished.  "  I  conjure  you,"  she 
wrote  to  him  after  his  return,  "  to  send  me  open  docu 
ments,  stamped  with  your  seal,  containing  the  full  absolu 
tion  of  my  departed  lord,  that  these  evidences  of  felicity 
may  be  suspended  over  his  tomb."  "  Remember  too,"  she 
added,  "to  consider  as  your  own  son  the  son  of  Abelard 
and  Heloise." 

Peter  the  Venerable  yielded  to  this  last  anxious  scruple 
of  affection,  and  forwarded  to  the  Paraclete  the  letters  of 
absolution  demanded  from  him.  He  also,  with  his  own 
hand,  in  an  epistle  t<0Heloise  replete  with  evangelical 
love,  recapitulated  every  circumstance  attending  the  last 
days  of  Abelard  which  might  tend  to  console  the  anguish 
of  an  eternal  widowhood.  "  It  is  not  on  this  day,"  says 
he,  "  oh  my  sister,  that  I  begin  to  love  you,  for  I  have  loved 
you  long  already !  I  had  scarcely  passed  my  early  youth 
and  reached  the  age  of  manhood  when  the  fame  reached 
me,  not  then  of  your  exalted  piety,  but  of  your  unrivaled 
genius.  It  was  related  every  where  that  a  young  female 
in  the  first  bloom  of  youth  and  beauty  had  distinguished 
herself,  unlike  her  sex  in  general,  by  poetry,  eloquence, 
and  philosophy.  Neither  the  love  of  pleasure  nor  the  at 
tractions  of  the  time  could  obtain  dominion  in  her  heart 
over  pursuits  which  were  grand  in  intellect  and  beautiful 
in  science.  The  world,  stagnating  in  base  and  slothful 
ignorance,  beheld  with  astonishment  how,  not  only  among 
women,  but  in  the  assemblies  of  men,  Heloise  exhibited 
and  maintained  her  vast  superiority.  Soon  (to  speak  in 
the  words  of  the  Apostle)  He  who  had  suffered  you  to  issue 
from  the  bosom  of  your  mother,  by  divine  grace  attracted 
you  entirely  to  himself.  You  exchanged  the  study  of  per 
ishable  knowledge  for  the  science  of  eternity  ;  for  Plato 
you  adopted  Christ,  and  in  place  of  the  Academy  you  select 
ed  the  cloister !  "Would  that  it  had  been  permitted  that 


136  HELOISfc. 

Cluny  should  have  possessed  you!  that  you  should  have 
shared  our  sweet  imprisonment  of  Marcigny,  with  the  fe 
male  servants  of  the  Lord,  who  pant  only  for  celestial  lib 
erty  !  But,  although  Providence  withheld  this  favor  from 
us,  we  have  been  distinguished  by  receiving  him  who  in 
life  belonged  to  you — him  whom  we  must  ever  honor  and 
remember  with  respect — the  philosopher  of  the  Gospel, 
the  Abelard  who,  by  divine  permission,  was  sent  to  close 
his  days  in  our  monastery. 

"  It  is  no  easy  task,  my  sister,  to  describe  in  a  few  short 
lines  the  holiness,  the  humility,  the  self-denial  he  exhibit 
ed  to  us,  and  of  which  the  collected  brotherhood  have  borne 
witness.  If  I  do  not  deceive  myself,  never  did  I  behold  a 
life  and  deportment  so  thoroughl^submissive.  I  placed 
him  in  an  elevated  rank  in  our  community,  but  he  appear 
ed  the  lowest  of  all  by  the  simplicity  of  his  dress.  It  was 
equally  so  with  his  diet,  and  all  that  regarded  the  enjoy 
ment  of  the  senses.  I  speak  not  of  luxury,  which  was  a 
stranger  to  him  ;  he  refused  every  thing  but  what  was  in 
dispensable  to  the  sustenance  of  life.  His  conduct  and 
his  words  were  irreproachable,  either  as  regarded  himself 
or  as  an  example  to  others. 

"  He  read  continually,  prayed  often,  and  never  spoke, 
except  when  literary  controversy  or  holy  discussion  com 
pelled  him  to  break  silence.  What  can  I  tell  you  more  1 
His  mind,  his  tongue,  his  meditations,  were  entirely  con 
centrated  on,  and  promoted  literary,  philosophical,  and 
divine  instruction.  Simple,  straightforward,  reflecting 
on  eternal  judgment,  and  shunning  all  evil,  he  conse 
crated  to  God  the  closing  days  of  an  illustrious  life. 

"  To  afford  him  a  little  recreation  and  to  recruit  his 
failing  health,  I  dispatched  him  to  Saint  Marcel,  near 
Chalons.  I  purposely  selected  this  country,  the  most  at 
tractive  in  Burgundy,  and  a  convent  close  to  the  town, 
from  which  it  is  only  separated  by  the  course  of  the 
SaSne.  There,  as  much  as  his  strength  permitted,  he 
resumed  the  cherished  studies  of  his  youth,  and,  as  has 


HELOISE.  137 

been  also  said  of  Gregory  the  Great,  he  suffered  not  a 
single  moment  to  pass  that  was  not  occupied  either  in 
prayer,  in  reading,  in  writing,  or  in  dictation. 

"  While  occupied  with  these  holy  avocations,  death,  the 
missionary  of  the  divine,  came  to  seek  him.  He  found  him 
not  asleep,  like  many  others,  but  awake,  up,  and  ready, 
and  conveyed  him  joyfully  to  the  marriage  feast.  He 
carried  with  him  his  lamp  replenished  with  oil,  his  con 
science  filled  with  the  testimony  of  a  holy  life.  A  mortal 
sickness  seized*  and  reduced  him  to  extremity ;  he  felt 
that  he  had  reached  the  term  of  his  mortal  existence, 
and  was  about  to  render  up  the  common  tribute.  Then, 
with  what  fervent  piety,  what  ardent  inspiration,  did  he 
make  the  last  confession  of  his  sins !  with  what  fervor 
did  he  receive  the  promise  of  eternal  being !  with  what 
confidence  did  he  recommend  his  body  and  his  soul  to 
the  tender  mercy  of  the  Savior !  Such  was  the  death  of 
Abelard !  And  thus  has  the  man  who  had  rendered 
himself  illustrious  throughout  the  world  by  the  miracles 
of  his  knowledge  and  his  lessons,  passed,  according  to  my 
conviction,  into  the  presence  of  his  Creator. 

"  And  you,  my  sister,  loved  and  venerated  in  God — you, 
who  were  united  to  him  in  worldly  bonds  before  you  en 
tered  on  a  second  union  cemented  by  divine  affection — 
you,  who  have  so  long  devoted  yourself  to  the  Lord  with 
him  and  by  his  direction,  remember  him  ever  in  your 
prayers  and  in  your  communion  with  the  Savior.  Christ 
shelters  you  both  in  the  asylum  of  his  heart ;  he  warms 
you  again  in  his  bosom  ;  and  when  his  day  arrives,  an 
nounced  by  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  he  will  restore 
Abelard  to  you,  and  never  more  will  you  be  separated." 

Religion  should  have  erected  a  statue  to  the  man  who 
could  indite  this  letter.  Never  did  divine  tenderness 
unite  itself  with  more  indulgence  to  human  affection. 
Never  did  sanctity  evince  greater  condescension,  or  virtue 
soften  into  more  amiable  compassion.  We  observe  with 
what  delicacy  of  sentiment  and  expression  he  recalls, 


138  HELOISE. 

even  in  death,  the  image  of  an  eternal  marriage,  so 
inseparably  wound  up  with  the  aspirations  of  Heloise. 
The  oil  of  the  Samaritan  did  not  penetrate  with  more 
healing  influence  into  the  wounds  of  the  body  than  these 
words  of  true  piety  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the  heart. 
The  friendship  of  such  a  man  as  Peter  the  Venerable,  and 
the  love  of  such  a  woman  as  Heloise,  are  of  themselves 
sufficient  evidences  that  Abelard  deserved  better  of  his 
age  than  posterity  is  willing  to  believe. 

Heloise  survived  her  husband  twenty  years,  a  priestess 
of  God,  devoted  to  the  worship  of  a  sepulchre  in  the  sol 
itude  of  the  Paraclete.  When  she  felt  the  near  approach 
of  the  death  she  had  so  long  invoked,  she  directed  the 
sisterhood  to  place  her  body  by  the  side  of  that  of  her 
husband,  in  the  same  coffin.  The  love  which  had  united 
and  separated  them  during  life  by  so  many  prodigies  of 
passion  and  constancy,  appeared  to  signalize  their  burilal 
by  a  fresh  miracle.  At  the  moment  when  the  coffin  of 
Abelard  was  opened  to  lay  within  it  the  body  of  Heloise, 
it  was  said  that  the  arm  of  the  skeleton,  compressed  for 
twenty  years  under  the  weight  of  the  lid,  stretched  itself 
out,  opened,  and  appeared  to  be  reanimated,  to  receive 
the  spouse  restored  by  heavenly  love  to  an  eternal  em 
brace.  This  credulity  of  the  age,  transformed  into  an 
actual  occurrence,  was  related  by  historians  and  sung  by 
poets,  and  consecrated  in  the  imagination  of  the  people 
the  holiness  of  the  reunited  pair. 

They  reposed  for  500  years  in  one  of  the  aisles  of  the 
Paraclete,  sometimes  separated  by  the  scruples  of  the  ab 
bess,  and  subsequently  united  again  in  compliance  with 
the  conjugal  desire,  strongly  expressed  in  life  as  in  death, 
and  which  was  repeated  even  from  the  tomb. 

The  French  Revolution,  which  scattered  to  the  winds 
the  dust  of  the  kings  and  princes  of  the  Church,  respect 
ed  the  remains  of  these  unfortunate  lovers.  In  1792,  the 
Paraclete  having  been  sold  as  ecclesiastical  property,  the 
town  of  Nogent  removed  the  tombs,  and  sheltered  them 
in  the  nave  of  their  own  church.  In  1800,  Lucien  Bona- 


HELOISE.  139 

parte,  a  zealous  advocate  of  letters  and  collector  of  an 
cient  relics,  instructed  a  respectable  artist,  M.Lenoir,  to 
transport  the  coffin  of  Abelard  and  Heloise  to  the  mu 
seum  of  French  monuments  in  Paris.  When  the  lead 
was  opened,  the  witnesses  present  declared  "  that  the 
two  bodies  had  been  of  elevated  stature  and  beautifully 
proportioned."  "  The  head  of  Heloise,"  according  to  M-. 
Lenoir,  "  is  of  admirable  contour,  and  the  rounded  fore 
head  expresses  still  the  most  perfect  beauty.  The  re 
cumbent  statues  carved  on  the  tomb  have  been  moulded 
from  those  recomposed  remains  by  the  imagination  of 
the  sculptor.  A  few  years  later,  the  mortuary  chapel  in 
which  the  tomb  was  inclosed  became  the  principal  or 
nament  of  the  garden  of  the  museum."  The  visitors 
were  frequent  and  numerous.  In  1815,  the  government 
of  the  Bourbons,  which  carefully  preserved  all  sepulchral 
vestiges,  to  bring  the  people  back  to  the  ancient  worship, 
was  desirous  of  removing  the  coffin  of  Abelard  and  He 
loise  to  the  abbey  of  St.  Denis,  a  sanctuary  to  which  it 
no  more  belonged  than  the  proscribed  does  to  the  pro- 
scriber.  General  opinion  protested  against  this  burying 
within  a  closed  church  a  monument  which  all  claimed  as 
public  property.  It  was  then  finally  placed  in  the  great 
necropolis  of  Paris,  the  cemetery  of  Pere-la-Chaise.  There 
may  be  seen  the  statues  of  Abelard  and  Heloise  lying  side 
by  side,  decked  with  flowers  and  funeral  coronets,  per 
petually  renewed  by  invisible  hands.  Succeeding  gen 
erations  appear  to  claim  an  eternal  relationship  with  the 
illustrious  departed.  The  votive  offerings  proceed  from 
kindred  souls,  separated  by  death,  persecution,  or  worldly 
impediments,  from  those  to  whom  they  are  attached  on 
earth  or  mourn  in  heaven.  They  thus  mysteriously  con 
vey  their  admiration  for  truth  and  constancy,  and  their 
sympathy  with  the  posthumous  union  of  two  hearts,  who 
transposed  conjugal  tenderness  from  the  senses  to  the 
soul,  who  spiritualized  the  most  ardent  and  sensual  of 
human  passions,  and  changed  love  itself  into  a  holocaust, 
a  martyrdom,  and  a  holy  sacrifice. 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

A.D.  1492. 

PROVIDENCE  conceals  itself  in  the  detail  of  human  af 
fairs,  but  becomes  unveiled  in  the  generalities  of  history. 
No  sensible  person  has  ever  denied  that  the  great  events 
which  mark  the  history  of  man  are  connected  and  linked 
together  by  an  invisible  chain.  Supported  by  the  al 
mighty  hand  of  the  great  Creator  of  worlds,  to  give  them 
unity  of  design  and  plan,  how  can  he  be  blind  who  has 
given  sight  to  the  eye  ?  How  can  he  who  has  endowed 
his  work  with  thought  be  himself  without  thought  ? 

The  ancients  gave  to  this  occult,  absolute,  and  irresist 
ible  influence  of  God  over  human  affairs  the  name  of  Des 
tiny,  or  Fate  ;  the  moderns  call  it  Providence,  a  more  in 
telligent,  more  religious,  and  more  affectionate  name.  In 
studying  the  history  of  humanity,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
discern  the  paramount  action  of  Providence  concurrent 
with,  and  controlling,  the  free  action  of  man.  This  gen 
eral  and  collective  movement  is  not  in  any  way  incompat 
ible  with  the  freedom  of  will,  in  which  alone  depends  the 
morality  of  individuals  and  of  nations  ;  it  seems  to  let  them 
move,  act,  and  go  astray  with  complete  liberty  of  intention, 
whether  vicious  or  good  ;  but  it  reserves  to  itself  the  guid 
ance  of  the  great  general  results  of  these  acts  of  individuals 
or  nations.  It  appears  to  select  them,  independently  of 
us,  for  divine  ends  with  which  we  are  unacquainted,  and 
of  which  it  allows  us  only  an  indistinct  suspicion  when 
they  are  almost  attained.  Good  and  evil  belong  to  our 
selves,  and  are  in  our  power ;  but  Providence  uses  our 
vices  and  our  virtues  alike,  and  with  the  same  unfailing 
wisdom  obtains  from  evil  as  from  good  the  accomplish- 


142  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ment  of  its  designs  respecting  humanity.  The  hidden  but 
divine  instrument  of  this  Providence,  when  it  thinks  fit  to 
make  use  of  men  to  prepare  or  accomplish  a  part  of  its 
plans,  is  inspiration.  Inspiration  is  indeed  a  human  mys 
tery,  for  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  cause  in  man  himself. 
It  seems  to  come  from  a  higher  and  more  distant  source. 
Hence  has  arisen  a  name,  mysterious  also,  and  not  well 
defined  in  any  language — genius.  Providence  causes  a 
man  of  genius  to  be  born ;  genius  is  a  gift :  it  is  not  ac 
quired  by  labor,  nor  is  it  even  obtained  by  virtue  ;  it  exists, 
or  it  exists  not,  without  its  possessor  being  able  to  explain 
its  nature  or  how  he  came  to  possess  it.  To  this  genius 
Providence  sends  an  inspiration.  Inspiration  is  to  genius 
what  the  magnet  is  to  steel ;  it  attracts  it,  irrespectively 
of  all  knowledge  or  will,  toward  something  fatal  and  un 
known,  as  to  its  pole.  Genius  follows  the  inspiration  by 
which  it  is  attracted,  and  an  ideal  or  an  actual  world  is 
discovered. 

So  was  it  with  Christopher  Columbus  and  the  discovery 
of  America. 

Columblis  aspired  in  thought  to  the  completion  of  the 
globe,  which  appeared  to  him  to  want  one  of  its  hemi 
spheres.  The  idea  of  the  earth's  geographical  unity  incited 
him.  This  notion  was  generally  prevalent  in  his  time. 
There  seem  to  be  ideas  floating  in  the  air,  a  species  of  in 
tellectual  miasma,  which  thousands  of  men,  without  con 
cert,  breathe  at  once. 

Whenever  Providence  is  preparing  the  world,  unknown 
to  itself,  for  a  religious,  moral,  or  political  change,  this  phe 
nomenon  may  generally  be  observed — a  tendency  or  prog 
ress,  more  or  less  complete,  to  the  unity  of  the  earth  by 
conquest,  language,  religious  proselytism,  navigation,  geo 
graphical  discovery,  or  the  multiplication  of  the  relations 
of  different  countries  with  each  other,  by  the  facilitation 
of  intercourse  and  frequency  of  contact  between  those 
countries  of  which  easy  means  of  communication,  common 
necessities,  and  exchanges  make  but  one  people.  This 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  143 

tendency  to  the  unity  of  the  earth  at  certain  periods  is  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  providential  interfer 
ence  that  occurs  in  history. 

Thus,  when  the  great  oriental  civilization  of  India  and 
Egypt  seems  effete  from  age,  and  God  wishes  to  call  Asia 
and  the  West  to  a  younger,  more  active,  and  more  stirring 
civilization,  Alexander  starts,  without  well  knowing  why, 
from  the  valleys  of  Macedon,  taking  with  him  the  enthu 
siasm  and  the  soldiers  of  Greece  ;  and  before  the  terror 
and  glory  of  his  name,  the  known  world  becomes  one,  from 
the  Indus  to  the  extremes  of  Europe. 

When  He  wishes  to  prepare  an  immense  audience  for 
the  transforming  word  of  Christianity  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West,  He  spreads  the  language,  the  dominion,  and  the 
arms  of  Rome  and  of  Cassar  from  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf  to  the  mountains  of  Scotland,  uniting  under  one  mind 
and  under  a  common  authority,  Italy,  the  two  Gauls,  Great 
Britain,  Sicily,  Greece,  Africa,  and  Asia. 

Wlien  He  desires,  some  centuries  afterward,  to  snatch 
Arabia,  Persia,  and  their  dependencies  from  barbarism,  and 
to  make  the  resistless  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Unity  prevail 
over  the  idolatries  or  indifference  of  these  remote  or  cor 
rupt  portions  of  the  world,  He  arms  Mohammed  with  the 
Koran  and  the  sword  :  He  permits  the  religion  of  Islam  in 
two  centuries  to  conquer  all  the  space  comprised  between 
the  Oxus  and  the  Tagus,  Thibet  and  Lebanon,  Atlas  and 
the  Taurus.  An  immense  unity  of  empire  is  the  sure  fore 
runner  of  unity  of  thought. 

So  with  Charlemagne  in  the  West,  when  his  universal 
monarchy,  bestriding  the  Alps,  prepares,  even  in  Scythia 
and  Germany,  the  vast  field  in  which  Christian  civiliza 
tion  is  to  receive  and  baptize  the  barbarians. 

So  also  with  the  French  Revolution,  that  reform  of  the 
Western  World  by  reason,  when  Napoleon,  as  enterprising 
as  Alexander,  and  more  blind,  marches  his  victorious  ar 
mies  over  the  subjugated  Continent  of  Europe,  constitutes 
for  a  moment  the  great  unity  of  France,  and,  hoping  to 


144  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

found  an  empire,  only  succeeds  in  sowing  the  seeds  of  the 
language,  the  ideas,  and  the  institutions  of  the  Revolu 
tion. 

Thus,  too,  in  our  days — no  longer  in  the  shape  of  con 
quest,  but  under  the  form  of  intellectual,  commercial,  and 
peaceful  communications  among  all  the  continents  and  all 
nations  of  the  earth — science  becomes  the  universal  con 
queror,  to  the  advantage  and  honor  of  all.  Providence 
seems  now  to  have  charged  the  genius  of  industry  and  of 
discovery  with  the  task  of  preparing  for  Him  the  most  com 
plete  unity  of  the  terrestrial  globe  that  has  ever  condensed 
time,  space,  and  people  into  a  close,  compact,  and  homoge 
neous  mass.  Navigation,  printing,  the  discovery  of  steam 
— that  cheap  and  irresistible  power  which  propels  man, 
with  his  armies  and  his  merchandise,  as  far  and  as  quick 
as  his  thoughts ;  the  construction  of  railroads,  which  pass 
through  mountain  and  over  valley,  bringing  all  the  earth 
to  one  level ;  the  discovery  of  the  electric  telegraph,  which 
gives  to  communications  between  the  two  hemispheres 
the  rapidity  of  lightning ;  the  invention  of  balloons,  to 
which  a  helm  is  still  wanting,  but  which  will  soon  render 
the  air  a  more  simple  and  more  universal  element  of  navi 
gation  than  the  ocean — all  these  nearly  contemporary  rev 
elations  of  Providence  through  the  inspiration  of  the  spirit 
of  industry  are  means  of  concentration,  drawing  the  earth 
as  it  were  together,  and  instruments  of  union  and  assimila 
tion  for  the  human  race.  These  means  are  so  active  and 
so  evident  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  perceive  in  them  a 
new  plan  of  Providence,  a  new  tendency  in  an  unknown 
direction — impossible  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  God 
meditates  for  us  or  for  our  descendants  some  design  still 
hidden  to  our  narrow  sight — a  design  for  which  He  is  tak 
ing  measures,  by  causing  the  world  to  advance  to  the  mo«£ 
powerful  of  unities,  the  unity  of  thought,  which  announces 
some  great  unity  of  action  in  the  future. 

In  like  manner  was  the  spirit  of  the  fifteenth  century 
prepared  for  some  great  human  or  divine  manifestation, 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


145 


when  the  illustrious  man  whose  history  we  are  about  to 
relate  was  born.  Something  was  expected  ;  for  the  hu 
man  mind  has  its  forebodings,  the  vague  presages  of  ap 
proaching  events. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1471,  at  midday,  beneath  the 
burning  sun  that  scorched  the  roads  of  Andalusia,  on  a  hill 
about  half  a  league  from  the  little  sea-port  of  Palos,  two 
strangers,  traveling  on  foot,  their  shoes  almost  worn  out 
with  walking,  their  drees,  which  still  retained  the  marks  of 
gentility,  soiled  with  dust,  and  their  foreheads  streaming 
with  perspiration,  stopped  to  sit  down  beneath  the  shade 
of  the  outer  porch  of  a  little  convent  called  Santa  Maria  de 
Rabida.  Their  appearance  and  fatigue  were  a  sufficient 
prayer  for  hospitality.  The  Franciscan  convents  were  at 
that  period  the  hostelries  for  all  pedestrians  whose  poverty 
prevented  their  seeking  another  refuge.  These  two  stran 
gers  attracted  the  attention  of  the  monks/ 

One  was  a  man  who  had  scarcely  reached  the  prime  of 
life,  tall  in  stature,  powerfully  built,  of  majestic  gait,  with 
a  noble  forehead,  open  countenance,  thoughtful  look,  and 
pleasing  and  elegant  mouth.  His  hair,  in  his  youth  of  a 
light  auburn,  was  sprinkled  here  and  there  about  the  tem 
ples  with  the  white  streaks  prematurely  traced  by  misfor 
tune  and  mental  anxiety.  His  forehead  was  high  ;  his 
complexion,  once  rosy,  had  been  made  pale  by  study,  and 
bronzed  by  sun  and  sea.  The  tone  of  his  voice  was  deep 
and  sonorous,  powerful  and  impressive,  as  that  of  a  man 
accustomed  to  utter  profound  reflections.  There  was  noth 
ing  of  levity  or  thoughtlessness  in  his  behavior :  every 
thing  was  grave  and  deliberate,  even  in  his  slightest  move 
ment  :  he  seemed  to  have  a  modest  self-respect,  and  to  re 
tain  habitually  the  controlled  demeanor  of  a  pious  worship 
er,  as  though  he  always  felt  himself  to  be  in  the  presence 
of  God. 

The  other  was  a  child  of  eight  or  ten  years  old.     His 
features,  more  feminine,  but  already  matured  by  the  fa 
tigues  of  life,  bore  so  strong  a  resemblance  to  those  of  the 
VOL.  L— G 


146  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

other  stranger,  that  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  taking  him 
for  a  son  or  a  brother  of  the  elder  man. 

The  two  strangers  were  Christopher  Columbus  and  his 
son  Diego.  The  monks,  interested  and  moved  at  the  sight 
of  the  noble  countenance  of  the  father  and  the  elegance  of 
the  child,  in  such  strong  contrast  with  the  poverty  of  their 
condition,  invited  them  into  the  monastery  to  partake,  of 
the  shelter,  the  food,  and  the  rest  always  accorded  to  way 
farers.  While  Columbus  and  his  child  were  refreshing  and 
recruiting  their  strength  with  the  water,  bread,  and  olives 
supplied  by  their  hosts,  the  monks  went  to  inform  the  prior 
of  the  arrival  of  the  two  guests,  and  of  the  singular  inter 
est  inspired  by  their  noble  appearance,  so  little  in  accord 
ance  with  their  poverty.  The  prior  came  down  to  con 
verse  with  them. 

The  superior  of  this  convent  of  La  K/abida  was  Juan  Pe 
rez  de  la  Marchenna,  formerly  confessor  to  Q,ueen  Isabel 
la,  who  then  reigned  over  Spain  with  Ferdinand.  A  man 
of  piety,  of  science,  and  of  thought,  he  had  preferred  the 
retirement  of  the  cloister  to  the  honors  arid  intrigues  of  the 
court ;  but  this  very  retirement  had  secured  him  great  re 
spect  in  the  palace,  and  great  influence  over  the  mind  of 
the  queen.  Providence  rather  than  chance  appeared  to 
have  directed  the  steps  of  Columbus,  as  if  it  had  intended 
to  open  to  him,  by  a  safe  though  unseen  hand,  the  readi 
est  approaches  to  the  ear,  the  mind,  and  the  heart  of  the 
sovereigns. 

The  prior  saluted  the  stranger,  caressed  the  child,  and 
kindly  inquired  into  the  circumstances  which  obliged  them 
to  travel  on  foot  through  the  by-roads  of  Spain,  and  to  seek 
the  humble  roof  of  a  poor  and  lonely  monastery.  Colum 
bus  related  his  obscure  life,  and  unfolded  his  stirring 
thoughts  to  the  attentive  monk.  This  life,  these  thoughts, 
were  but  an  expectation  and  a  foreboding.  This  has  since 
been  learned  of  them. 

Christopher  Columbus  was  the  eldest  son  of  a  Genoese 
wool-carder,  a  business  now  low,  but  then  respectable  and 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  147 

almost  noble.  In  the  manufacturing  and  commercial  re 
publics  of  Italy,  the  operatives,  proud  of  their  discoveries 
and  inventions,  formed  guilds,  which  were  ennobled  by 
their  arts,  and  influential  in  the  state.  Christopher  was 
born  in  1436.  He  had  two  brothers,  Bartholomew  and 
Diego,  whom  he  afterward  sent  for,  to  share  his  labors, 
his  fame,  and  his  adversity.  He  had  also  a  sister,  youn 
ger  than  her  brothers.  She  married  a  Genoese  artisan,  and 
obscurity  long  sheltered  her  from  the  glory  and  misfor 
tunes  of  her  kindred. 

Our  tastes  depend  on  the  first  views  which  nature  pre 
sents  to  our  eyes  in  the  places  of  our  birth,  especially  when 
these  views  are  majestic  and  infinite,  like  mountains,  sea, 
and  sky.  Our  imagination  is  but  the  echo  and  reflection 
of  the  scenes  which  have  originally  struck  us.  The  first 
looks  of  Columbus,  while  an  infant,  were  upon  the  heav 
ens  and  the  sea  of  Genoa.  Astronomy  and  navigation' soon 
directed  his  thoughts  to  the  spaces  thus  spread  before  his 
eyes.  He  peopled  them  in  his  imagination  before  he  filled 
their  charts  with  continents  and  islands.  Contemplative, 
taciturn,  and  from  his  earliest  years  disposed  to  piety,  his 
genius  carried  him,  while  yet  a  child,  far  and  high  through 
space,  not  only  to  vaster  discoveries,  but  to  more  fervent 
worship.  "What,  in  the  divine  works,  he  sought  beyond 
all  things,  was  God  himself. 

His  father,  a  man  of  liberal  mind,  and  wealthy  in  his 
trade,  did  not  attempt  to  oppose  the  studious  bent  of  his 
son's  inclinations.  He  sent  him  to  Pavia,  to  study  geom 
etry,  geography,  astronomy,  astrology  (an  imaginary  sci 
ence  of  that  day),  and  navigation.  His  powers  soon  over 
stepped  the  limits  of  those  sciences  in  their  then  incom 
plete  state.  He  was  one  of  those  that  always  pass  beyond 
the  boundary  at  which  the  common  run  of  people  stop,  and 
cry  "  enough."  At  fourteen  years  of  age  he  knew  all  that 
was  taught  in  the  schools,  and  he  returned  to  his  family  at 
Genoa.  His  mind  could  not  brook  the  sedentary  and  un- 
intellectual  confinement  of  his  father's  business.  He  sail- 


148  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ed  for  several  years  in  trading  vessels  and  ships  of  war, 
and  in  the  adventurous  expeditions  which  the  great  houses 
of  Genoa  launched  on  the  Mediterranean,  to  contest  its 
waves  and  its  ports  with  the  Arab,  the  Spaniard,  and  the 
Moor ;  a  sort  of  perpetual  crusade,  in  which  trade,  war,  and 
religion  made  these  fleets  of  the  Italian  republics  schools 
of  commerce,  of  wealth,  of  heroism,  and  of  devotion.  At 
once  a  sailor,  a  philosopher,  and  a  soldier,  he  embarked  in 
one  of  the  vessels  which  his  country  lent  the  Duke  of  An- 
jou  when  he  went  to  conquer  Naples,  in  the  fleet  which 
the  King  of  Naples  sent  to  attack  Tunis,  and  the  squadrons 
dispatched  by  Genoa  against  Spain.  He  even  rose,  it  is 
said,  to  the  command  of  some  of  the  obscure  naval  expedi 
tions  of  the  city.  But  history  loses  sight  of  him  in  this  his 
early  career.  His  destiny  was  not  there  ;  he  felt  himself 
trammeled  in  the  narrow  seas  and  amid  those  small  events. 
His  thoughts  were  vaster  than  his  country.  He  meditated 
a  conquest  for  the  human  race,  not  for  the  little  republic 
of  Liguria.  • -"-;••' 

During  the  intervals  between  his  expeditions,  Christo 
pher  Columbus  found  means  of  satisfying,  by  the  study  of 
his  art,  his  fondness  for  geography  and  navigation,  and  of 
increasing  his  humble  fortune.  He  drew,  engraved,  and 
sold  nautical  charts,  and  this  business  afforded  him  a 
scanty  livelihood.  He  looked  to  it  less  with  a  view  to 
gain  than  to  the  progress  of  science.  His  mind  and  his 
feelings,  always  fixed  on  the  sea  and  stars,  secretly  pur 
sued  an  object  known  but  to  himself. 

A  shipwreck,  caused  by  his  vessel  taking  fire  in  the 
roads  of  Lisbon  after  a  naval  engagement,  obliged  him  to 
remain  in  Portugal.  He  threw  himself  into  the  water  to 
escape  the  fire ;  and,  supporting  himself  by  an  oar  with 
one  hand,  and  swimming  with  the  other,  he  reached  the 
shore.  Portugal,  then  completely  occupied  with  the  pas 
sion  for  maritime  discovery,  was  a  field  suited  to  his  incli 
nations.  He  hoped  to  find  in  it  opportunities  and  means 
of  sailing  where  he  pleased  over  the  ocean  :  he  only  found 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  149 

the  unpleasing  sedentary  labor  of  the  geographer,  obscurity, 
and  love.  As  he  went  each  day  to  attend  the  religious 
services  in  the  church  of  a  convent  at  Lisbon,  he  became 
fondly  attached  to  a  young  recluse,  whose  beauty  had  struck 
him.  She  was  the  daughter  of  an  Italian  nobleman  in  the 
service  of  Portugal.  Her  father  had  confided  her  to  the 
care  of  the  sisters  of  this  convent  before  starting  on  a  dis 
tant  naval  expedition.  Her  name  was  Filippa  da  Pale- 
strello.  Attracted  on  her  part  by  the  thoughtful  and  ma 
jestic  beauty  of  the  young  stranger,  whom  she  saw  regu 
larly  attending  divine  service  in  the  church,  she  felt  the 
same  passion  she  had  inspired.  Both  without  relations 
and  without  fortune,  in  a  foreign  land,  there  was  nothing 
to  interfere  with  their  mutual  attachment ;  and  they  mar 
ried,  relying  on  Providence  and  on  labor,  the  only  wealth 
of  Filippa  and  her  husband.  In  order  to  support  himself, 
with  his  wife  and  mother-in-law,  he  continued  the  busi 
ness  of  making  his  maps  and  globes,  which  were  much 
sought  after,  on  account  of  their  accuracy,  by  the  Portu 
guese  mariners.  The  papers  of  his  father-in-law,  which 
his  wife  handed  over  to  him,  and  his  correspondence  with 
Toscanelli,  the  famous  Florentine  navigator,  gave  him,  it 
is  said,  precise  information  about  the  distant  seas  of  India, 
as  well  as  the  means  of  rectifying  the  then  confused  or 
fabulous  elements  of  navigation.  He  was  entirely  absorbed 
in  his  domestic  happiness  and  geographical  studies  when 
his  wife  gave  birth  to  a  son,  whom  he  called  Diego,  after 
his  brother's  name.  His  intimate  associates  were  only 
mariners  either  returned  from  distant  expeditions,  or 
dreaming  of  unknown  lands  and  unbeaten  paths  in  the 
ocean.  His  warehouse  of  charts  and  globes  was  a  source 
of  ideas,  conjectures,  and  projects,  which  kept  his  imagi 
nation  always  fixed  on  the  unsolved  problems  of  the  world. 
His  wife,  the  child  and  sister  of  seamen,  shared  his  enthu 
siasm.  While  turning  his  globes  under  his  hand,  or  dot 
ting  his  charts  with  islands  and  continents,  his  attention 
had  been  seized  by  the  immense  void  space  in  the  middle 


150  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

of  the  Atlantic.  On  that  side,  the  earth  seemed  to  want 
the  counterpoise  of  a  continent.  The  imaginations  of  navi 
gators  were  excited  by  vague,  wondrous,  and  terrible  ru 
mors  of  shores  indistinctly  seen  from  the  mountains  of  the 
Azores — said  by  some  to  be  floating,  and  by  others  fixed, 
appearing  at  intervals  in  clear  weather,  but  disappearing 
or  seeming  to  retire  when  any  venturous  pilot  endeavored 
to  approach  them.  A  Venetian  traveler,  Marco  Polo,  then 
regarded  as  an  inventor  of  fables,  and  whose  veracity  time 
has  since  shown,  related  to  the  West  the  wonders  of  the 
deserts,  the  states,  and  the  civilization  of  Tartary,  which 
was  then  supposed  to  extend  to  the  longitudes  in  reality 
occupied  by  the  Americas.  Columbus  himself  expected  to 
find,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  those  countries  of 
gold,  pearls,  and  myrrh,  from  which  Solomon  drew  his 
wealth — the  Ophir  of  the  Bible,  since  veiled  by  the  clouds 
of  distance  and  credulity.  It  was  not  a  new  continent,  but 
a  lost  continent,  that  he  sought.  The  pursuit  of  a  false 
hood  was  leading  him  to  truth. 

His  calculations,  founded  on  Ptolemy  and  the  Arabian 
geographers,  led  him  to  suppose  that  the  earth  was  a 
globe  which  it  was  possible  to  journey  round.  He  con 
sidered  this  globe  less  by  some  thousands  of  miles  than  it 
really  is.  He  therefore  concluded  that  the  extent  of  sea 
to  be  passed  before  reaching  these  unknown  countries  of 
India  was  less  than  navigators  usually  thought.  The  ex 
istence  of  these  lands  seemed  to  be  confirmed  by  the  sin 
gular  testimony  of  the  pilots  who  had  sailed  the  farthest 
beyond  the  Azores.  Some  had  seen,  floating  on  the  waves, 
branches  of  trees  unknown  in  the  West ;  others,  pieces  of 
wood  carved,  but  not  with  steel  tools  ;  others,  huge  pines 
hollowed  into  canoes  of  a  single  log  capable  of  carrying 
eighty  rowers  ;  others,  gigantic  reeds ;  others,  again,  had 
seen  corpses  of  white  or  copper-colored  men,  whose  fea 
tures  did  not  at  all  resemble  the  races  of  Western  Europe, 
of  Asia,  or  of  Africa. 

All  these  indications,  floating  from  time  to  time  in  the 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  151 

ocean,  after   storms,  combined  with  the   vague   instinct 
which  always  precedes  events,  even  as  the  shadow  goes 
before  one  who  has  the  sun  at  his  back,  appeared  as  mar 
vels  to  the  ignorant,  but  were  regarded  by  Columbus  as 
proofs  that  other  lands  existed  beyond  those  engraved  by 
geographers  on  their  maps  of  the  world.     He  was,  how 
ever,  convinced  that  these  lands  were  only  the  prolonga 
tion  of  Asia,  which  would  thus  occupy  more  than  a  third 
of  the  circumference  of  the  globe.     This  circumference 
being  then  unknown  to  philosophers  and  geometricians, 
the  extent  of  the  ocean  which  would  have  to  be  crossed 
in  order  to  reach  this  imaginary  Asia  was  left  entirely  to 
conjecture.     Some  thought  it  incommensurable  ;   others 
considered  it  a  species  of  deep  and  boundless  ether,  in 
which  navigators  might  lose  themselves,  as  aeronauts  do 
now  in  the  wastes  of  the  atmosphere.     The  greater  num 
ber,  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  gravity,  and  of  the  attraction 
which  draws  all  things  toward  the  centre,  and  yet  never 
theless  admitting  the  roundness  of  the  globe,  thought  that 
vessels  and  men,  if  they  could  ever  reach  the  antipodes, 
would  start  away  from  the  earth  and  fall  eternally  through 
the  abysses  of  infinite  space.     The  laws  which  govern  the 
level  and  movement  of  the  ocean  were  alike  unknown  to 
them.     They  considered  the  sea — beyond  a  certain  hor 
izon  bounded  by  isles  already  known — as  a  liquid  chaos, 
whose  huge  waves  rose  into  inaccessible  mountains,  leav 
ing  between  them  bottomless  abysses,  into  which  they 
rolled  down  from  above  in  irresistible  cataracts,  which 
would  swallow  any  vessels  daring  enough  to  brave  them. 
The  more  learned,  while  they  admitted  the  laws  of  gravity 
and  of  a  certain  level  in  the  liquid  spaces,  thought  that 
the  spherical  form  of  the  earth  would  give  the  ocean  a 
slope  toward  the  antipodes,  might  carry  vessels  onward  to 
nameless  shores,  but  would  not  allow  them  to  return  up 
this  slope  to  Europe.     From  these  divers  prejudices  con 
cerning  the  nature,  form,  extent,  ascents  and  descents,  of 
the  ocean,  there  resulted  a  general  and  mysterious  dread, 


152  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS, 

on  which  only  enterprising  minds  would  speculate  in 
thought,  and  which  none  but  superhuman  boldness  would 
venture  to  brave  in  ships.  It  would  be  a  struggle  between 
the  mind  of  man  and  the  illimitable  sea ;  to  attempt  this 
seemed  to  demand  more  than  a  mortal. 

The  unconquerable  predilection  of  the  poor  geographer 
for  this  enterprise  was  the  real  cause  that  detained  Colum 
bus  so  many  years  in  Lisbon,  the  country  of  his  thoughts. 
It  was  during  the  time  that  Portugal,  governed  by  John 
the  Second — an  enlightened  and  enterprising  prince,  and 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  colonization,  commerce,  and  ad 
venture — was  making  incessant  attempts  to  connect  Asia 
with  Europe  by  sea,  and  when  Vasco  de  Gama,  the  Por 
tuguese  colonist,  was  on  the  point  of  discovering  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  Columbus,  convinced  that  he  should  find 
a  more  open  and  direct  road  by  dashing  straightforward  to 
the  west,  obtained,  after  repeated  solicitations,  an  audience 
of  the  king,  to  whom  he  explained  his  plans  of  discovery, 
and  applied  for  the  means  of  accomplishing  them,  to  the 
advantage  and  honor  of  his  states.  The  king  listened  to 
him  with  interest ;  he  did  not  think  the  stranger's  faith  in 
his  hopes  sufficiently  devoid  of  foundation  to  be  classed  as 
chimerical.  Columbus,  besides  natural  eloquence,  possess 
ed  the  eloquence  of  earnest  conviction.  He  induced  the 
king  to  appoint  a  council,  composed  of  learned  men  and 
politicians,  to  examine  the  proposals  of  the  Genoese  nav 
igator,  and  report  upon  the  probability  of  its  success.  This 
council,  consisting  of  the  king's  confessor,  and  of  some 
geographers  who  enjoyed  all  the  more  credit  in  the  king's 
court  from  falling  in  with  common  prejudices,  declared 
the  ideas  of  Columbus  to  be  chimerical,  and  contrary  to 
all  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  religion. 

A  second  board  of  examiners,  to  whom  Columbus  ap 
pealed  by  the  king's  permission,  confirmed  the  previous 
decision.  Nevertheless,  with  a  perfidy  to  which  the  king 
was  no  party,  they  communicated  the  plans  of  Columbus 
to  a  pilot,  and  secretly  sent  a  vessel  to  try  the  passage  to 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  153 

Asia  which  he  pointed  out.  This  vessel,  after  cruising 
about  for  some  days  beyond  the  Azores,  came  back,  with 
its  crew  frightened  by  the  immensity  of  the  void  abyss, 
and  confirmed  the  council  in  their  contempt  for  the  conjec 
tures  of  Columbus. 

Pending  these  fruitless  solicitations  at  the  Portuguese 
court,  the  unfortunate  Columbus  had  lost  his  wife,  the  love 
of  his  heart,  and  the  consolation  and  encouragement  of  his 
thoughts.  His  fortune,  neglected  for  these'  expectations 
of  discovery,  was  ruined  ;  his  creditors  seized  the  produce 
of  his  labor,  even  to  his  maps  and  globes,  and  actually 
threatened  his  liberty.  Many  years  had  thus  been  lost  in 
expectation:  his  age  was  increasing,  his  child  growing, 
and  the  extreme  of  misery  was  his  only  prospect,  in  place 
of  the  New  World  which  he  contemplated.  He  escaped 
by  night  from  Lisbon,  on  foot,  without  any  resources  for 
his  journey  but  chance  hospitality  ;  and  sometimes  leading 
his  son  Diego  by  the  hand,  sometimes  carrying  him  on  his 
stalwart  shoulders,  he  entered  Spain,  with  the  determina 
tion  of  offering  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  who  then  gov 
erned  it,  the  continent  or  the  empire  which  Portugal  had 
refused. 

It  was  during  this  tedious  pilgrimage  to  the  shifting 
quarters  of  the  Spanish  court  that  he  reached  the  gate  of 
the  convent  of  La  Rabida,  near  Palos.  He  intended  first 
to  go  to  the  little  town  of  Huerta,  in  Andalusia,  in  which 
there  lived  a  brother  of  his  wife,  with  whom  he  was  going 
to  leave  his  son  Diego,  and  then  he  would  set  forth  alone 
to  encounter  delays,  risks,  and  perhaps  unbelief,  at  the 
court  of  Isabella  and  Ferdinand. 

It  has  been  said  that,  before  going  to  Spain,  he  had 
thought  it  right,  as  an  Italian  and  a  Genoese,  to  offer  his 
discovery  to  Genoa,  his  country,  first,  and  that  he  then  of 
fered  it  to  the  Venetian  Senate  ;  but  that  these  two  repub 
lics,  occupied  with  ambitious  projects  and  rivalries  nearer 
home,  had  met  his  repeated  applications  with  cold  refusals. 
The  prior  of  the  monastery  of  La  Rabida  was  better 
G2 


154  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

versed  in  the  sciences  relating  to  his  profession  than  was 
usual  for  a  man  of  his  class.  His  convent,  within  sight 
of  the  sea,  and  near  the  little  port  of  Palos,  then  one  of  the 
busiest  in  Andalusia,  had  thrown  the  monk  into  habitual 
contact  with  the  mariners  and  armorers  of  this  little  town, 
which  was  completely  dependent  on  the  sea.  During  his 
residence  in  the  capital  and  at  court,  he  had  occupied  him 
self  with  the  study  of  the  natural  sciences,  and  of  the  prob 
lems  which  Were  then  of  interest.  He  first  felt  pity,  and 
his  daily  conversations  with  Columbus  soon  produced  en 
thusiasm  and  confidence,  for  a  man  who  appeared  so  su 
perior  to  his  condition.  He  saw  in  him  one  of  those  sent 
by  God,  but  thrust  from  the  gates  of  cities  and  princes  to 
whom  their  poverty  brings  the  invisible  treasures  of  truth. 
Religion  understood  genius — a  species  of  revelation  which, 
like  the  other,  requires  its  believers.  He  felt  disposed  to 
be  among  those  trusting  few  who  share  in  the  revelations 
of  genius,  not  by  inventive  talent,  but  by  faith.  Provi 
dence  almost  always  sends  to  superior  men  one  of  these 
believers,  to  prevent  their  being  discouraged  by  the  in 
credulity,  the  harshness,  or  the  persecutions  of  the  multi 
tude.  They  exhibit  friendship  in  its  noblest  form.  They 
are  the  friends  of  disowned  truth,  believers  in  the  impos 
sible  future. 

Juan  Perez  felt  himself  predestined  by  Heaven,  from  the 
depth  of  his  solitude,  to  introduce  Columbus  to  the  favor 
of  Isabella,  and  to  preach  his  great  design  to  the  world. 
What  he  loved  in  Columbus  was  not  only  the  design,  but 
the  man  himself;  the  beauty,  energy,  courage,  modesty, 
gravity,  eloquence,  piety,  virtue,  softness,  grace,  patience, 
and  misfortune  nobly  borne,  revealing  in  this  stranger  a 
disposition  marked  with  innumerable  perfections  by  that 
divine  stamp  which  prevents  our  forgetting,  and  compels 
us  to  admire  a  truly  great  man.  After  his  first  conversa 
tion,  the  stranger  won  over  not  only  the  opinion,  but  also 
the  heart  of  the  monk  ;  and,  what  was  more  strange,  he 
never  lost  it,  Columbus  had  gained  a  friend. 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


155 


Juan  Perez  persuaded  Columbus  to  accept  for  some  days 
a  refuge,  or  at  least  a  resting-place  for  himself  and  his 
child,  in  the  poor  convent.  During  this  short  stay,  the 
prior  communicated  to  some  of  his  friends  and  neighbors 
of  Palos  the  arrival  and  the  adventures  of  his  guest.  He 
begged  them  to  come  to  the  convent  to  converse  with  the 
stranger  upon  his  conjectures,  his  intentions,  and  his  plans, 
in  order  to  see  how  his  theories  agreed  with  the  practical 
views  of  the  seamen  of  Palos.  An  eminent  man  and 
friend  of  the  prior,  the  physician  Fernandez,  and  a  skill 
ful  pilot,  Pedro  de  Velasco,  spent,  at  his  invitation,  several 
evenings  in  the  convent ;  listened  to  Columbus  ;  felt  their 
eyes  opened  by  his  conversation  ;  entered  into  his  plans 
with  all  the  warmth  of  earnest  minds  and  simple  hearts, 
and  formed  that  first  conclave  in  which  every  new  faith 
is  hatched,  with  the  cognizance  of  a  few  proselytes,  under 
the  shadow  of  intimacy,  solitude,  and  mystery.  Every 
great  truth  begins  as  a  secret  among  friends  before  burst 
ing  forth  brilliantly  to  the  world.  The  first  adherents  won 
over  to  his  belief  by  Columbus  in  the  cell  of  a  poor  monk, 
were  perhaps  dearer  to  him  than  the  applause  and  enthu 
siasm  of  all  Spain  when  success  had  confirmed  his  predic 
tions.  The  first  believed  on  the  faith  of  his  word,  the  oth 
ers  only  on  seeing  his  discoveries  ascertained. 

The  monk,  confirmed  in  his  opinion,  and  having  tested 
his  impressions  by  the  science  of  the  physician  Fernandez 
and  the  experience  of  the  pilot  Velasco,  was  more  than 
ever  charmed  with  his  guest.  He  persuaded  Columbus 
to  leave  the  child  in  his  care  at  the  convent,  to  go  to  court 
to  offer  the  discovery  of  the  New  World  to  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  and  to  ask  those  sovereigns  for  the  assistance 
necessary  to  carry  out  his  plans.  Chance  made  the  poor 
monk  a  powerful  patron  and  intercessor  at  the  Spanish 
court.  He  had  lived  there  long,  had  governed  the  con 
science  of  Isabella,  and,  when  his  taste  for  retirement  in 
duced  him  to  withdraw  from  the  palace,  he  had  kept  up 
friendly  relations  with  the  new  confessor  whom  he  rec- 


UG  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ommended  to  the  queen.  The  confessor  at  that  time 
keeper  of  the  sovereign's  conscience  was  Fernando  de  Tal- 
avera,  superior  of  the  monastery  of  the  Prado,  a  man  of 
merit,  reputation,  and  virtue,  to  whom  all  the  doors  in  the 
palace  were  open.  Juan  Perez  gave  Columbus  a  strong 
letter  of  recommendation  to  Fernando  de  Talavera,  and 
furnished  him  with  the  equipment  necessary  to  appear 
decently  at  court — a  mule,  a  guide,  and  a  purse  of  zee- 
chins.  Then,  embracing  him  at  the  gates  of  the  monas 
tery,  he  recommended  him  and  his  designs  to  the  care  of 
the  God  who  inspires,  and  the  chances  which  favor  great 
ideas. 

Full  of  gratitude  for  the  first  generous  friend,  whose 
eyes  and  heart  never  quitted  him,  and  to  whom  he  always 
ascribed  the  origin  of  his  good  fortune,  Columbus  set  out 
for  Cordova,  where  the  court  then  resided.  He  went  with 
that  confidence  of  success  which  is  the  illusion  of  genius, 
but  also  its  source  of  fortune.  It  was  not  long  before  this 
illusion  was  to  be  dispelled,  and  the  star  to  be  overshad 
owed.  The  moment  seemed  badly  chosen  for  the  Geno 
ese  adventurer  to  offer  a  new  world  to  the  crown  of  Spain. 
Far  from  dreaming  of  conquering  questionable  possessions 
beyond  unknown  seas,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  occu 
pied  with  the  recovery  of  their  own  kingdom  from  the 
Moors  in  Spain.  These  Moslem  conquerors  of  the  Penin 
sula,  after  a  long  and  prosperous  occupation,  saw  snatched 
away  from  them,  one  by  one,  the  towns  and  provinces 
which  they  had  made  their  country.  Vanquished  every 
where  despite  their  exploits,  all  that  they  now  possessed 
were  the  mountains  and  valley  surrounding  Granada,  the 
capital  and  the  wonder  of  their  empire.  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  employed  all  their  powers,  all  their  efforts,  and  all 
the  resources  of  their  united  kingdoms,  to  wrest  from  the 
Moors  this  citadel  of  Spain.  United  by  a  marriage  of  pol 
icy,  by  mutual  affection,  and  by  a  glory  shared  by  both 
alike,  one  had  brought  the  kingdom  of  Arragon,  and  the 
other  the  crown  of  Castile,  to  their  double  throne.  But, 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  157 

although  the  king  and  queen  had  thus  united  their  sep 
arate  provinces  into  one  country,  each  still  maintained  a 
distinct  and  independent  dominion  over  their  hereditary 
kingdom.  They  had  each  a  council  and  ministers  for  the 
separate  interests  of  their  own  subjects.  These  councils 
were  only  fused  into  one  government  on  questions  of  com 
mon  importance  to  the  two  states  and  the  two  sovereigns. 

Nature  seems  to  have  endowed  them  with  beauty,  qual 
ities,  and  excellences  of  mind  and  body  different,  but  near 
ly  equal,  as  if  one  was  intended  to  supply  what  was  want 
ing  in  the  other  for  the  conquests,  the  civilization,  and 
prosperity  which  were  in  store  for  them. 

Ferdinand,  a  little  older  than  Isabella,  was  a  skillful 
warrior  and  a  consummate  politician.  Before  the  age 
when  sad  experience  is  teaching  others  to  understand 
men,  he  could  see  through  them.  His  only  defect  was  a 
certain  coldness  and  suspicion,  arising  from  mistrust,  and 
closing  the  heart  to  enthusiasm  and  magnanimity. 

But  these  two  virtues,  in  which  he  was  to  some  extent 
wanting,  were  supplied  to  his  councils  by  the  tenderness 
and  genius  of  the  full-hearted  Isabella.  Young,  beautiful, 
admired  by  all,  adored  by  him,  well-educated,  pious  with 
out  superstition,  eloquent,  full  of  enthusiasm  for  great 
achievements,  of  admiration  for  great  men,  of  faith  in  great 
ideas,  she  stamped  on  the  mind  and  policy  of  Ferdinand 
the  heroism  which  springs  from  the  heart,  and  the  love  of 
the  marvelous  which  arises  from  the  imagination.  She 
inspired — he  executed.  The  one  found  her  reward  in  the 
fame  of  her  husband  ;  the  other,  his  glory  in  the  affection 
of  his  wife.  This  double  reign,  destined  to  become  of  al 
most  fabulous  import  in  the  annals  of  Spain,  only  awaited, 
in  order  to  immortalize  itself  among  all  reigns,  the  arrival 
of  the  destitute  foreigner  who  came  to  beg  admittance 
within  the  palace  of  Cordova,  with  the  letter  of  a  poor  friar 
in  his  hand. 

This  letter,  read  with  prejudice  and  unbelief  by  the 
queen's  confessor,  opened  to  Columbus  a  long  vista  of  de- 


158  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

lay,  exclusion,  and  discouragement.  It  is  only  in  solitude 
and  leisure  that  men  give  audience  to  bold  ideas.  Amid 
the  tumult  of  business  and  of  courts,  they  have  neither  the 
kindness  nor  the  time.  Columbus  was  driven  off  from 
every  door,  as  the  historian  Oviedo,  his  contemporary,  re 
lates,  "  because  he  was  a  foreigner,  because  he  was  poorly 
clad,  and  because  he  brought  the  courtiers  and  ministers 
no  other  recommendation  than  a  letter  from  a  Franciscan 
monk,  long  since  forgotten  at  the  court." 

The  king  and  queen  did  not  even  hear  of  him.  Isabel 
la's  confessor,  either  from  indifference  or  contempt,  com 
pletely  belied  the  expectations  Juan  Perez  had  founded 
upon  him.  Columbus,  with  the  obstinacy  that  arises  from 
certainty  biding  its  time,  stayed  at  Cordova,  to  be  near 
enough  to  watch  for  a  favorable  moment.  After  exhaust 
ing  the  scanty  purse  of  his  friend,  the  prior  of  La  Rabida, 
he  earned  a  slender  livelihood  by  his  trade  in  globes  and 
maps,  thus  trifling  with  the  images  of  the  world  which  he 
was  destined  to  conquer.  His  hard  and  patient  life  during 
many  years  is  but  a  tale  of  misery,  labor,  and  blighted 
hope.  Young  in  heart,  however,  and  affectionate,  he  loved, 
and  was  beloved,  in  those  years  of  trial ;  for  a  second  son, 
Fernando,  was  about  this  time  the  offspring  of  a  mysteri 
ous  attachment,  never  sanctified  by  marriage,  and  of  which 
he  records  the  fact  and  the  repentance  in  touching  lan 
guage  in  his  will.  He  brought  up  this  natural  son  with 
as  much  tenderness  as  his  other  son  Diego. 

His  external  grace  and  dignity,  however,  showed  them 
selves,  despite  his  humble  profession.  The  distinguished 
characters  with  whom  his  scientific  trade  occasionally 
brought  him  into  contact  received  of  his  person  and  con 
versation  an  impression  of  astonishment  and  attraction — 
the  magnetic  influence  of  a  great  mind  in  a  lowly  condi 
tion.  His  trade  and  conversation  by  degrees  gained  him 
friends  in  Cordova,  and  even  at  court.  Among  the  friends 
whose  names  history  has  preserved  as  associated  by  grati 
tude  to  the  New  "World  are  those  of  Alonzo  de  4uinta- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  159 

nilla,  high-treasurer  of  Isabella  ;  Geraldini,  the  tutor  of  the 
young  princes,  her  children  ;  Antonio  Geraldini,  papal 
nuncio  at  Ferdinand's  court ;  and,  lastly,  Mendoza,  Car 
dinal  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  who  enjoyed  such  royal  favor 
that  he  was  called  the  third  king  in  Spain. 

The  Archbishop  of  Toledo — at  first  alarmed  at  these 
geographical  novelties,  which  seemed,  from  a  mistaken 
idea,  to  clash  with  the  notions  of  celestial  mechanics  con 
tained  in  the  Bible — was  soon  quieted  by  the  sincere  and 
exalted  piety  of  Columbus.  He  ceased  to  fear  blasphemy 
in  ideas  which  increase  the  proofs  of  the  wisdom  and 
greatness  of  God.  Persuaded  by  the  system  and  delight 
ed  with  the  man,  he  obtained  from  his  sovereigns  an  au 
dience  for  his  protege.  After  two  years'  expectation,  Co 
lumbus  appeared  at  this  audience  with  the  modesty  be 
coming  a  poor  foreigner,  but  yet  with  the  confidence  of  a 
tributary  who  is  bringing  his  masters  more  than  they  can 
give  him  in  return.  "  Thinking  on  what  I  was,"  he  him 
self  afterward  remarks,  "  I  was  overwhelmed  with  humil 
ity  ;  but  thinking  of  what  I  brought,  I  felt  myself  on  an 
equality  with  the  two  crowns  :  I  perceived  that  I  was  no 
longer  my  humble  self,  but  the  instrument  of  God,  chosen 
and  marked  out  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  great  design." 

Ferdinand  listened  to  Columbus  with  attention,  Isabella 
with  enthusiasm.  From  his  first  look  and  his  first  tones, 
she  felt  for  this  messenger  of  God  an  admiration  amount 
ing  to  fanaticism — an  attraction  which  partook  of  affec 
tion.  Nature  had  given  to  Columbus  the  personal  recom 
mendations  which  fascinate  the  eye,  as  well  as  the  elo 
quence  which  persuades  the  mind.  It  might  have  been 
supposed  that  he  was  destined  to  have  for  his  first  apos 
tle  a  queen,  and  that  the  truth  with  which  he  was  to  en 
rich  his  age  was  to  be  first  received  and  fostered  in  the 
heart  of  a  woman.  Isabella  was  that  woman.  Her  con 
stancy  in  favor  of  Columbus  never  wavered  before  the  in 
difference  of  her  court,  before  his  enemies,  or  his  reverses. 
She  believed  in  him  from  the  day  she  first  saw  him  :  she 


160  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

was  his  proselyte  on  the  throne,  and  his  friend  even  to 
the  grave. 

Ferdinand,  after  hearing  Columbus,  appointed  a  coun 
cil  of  examination  at  Salamanca,  under  the  presidency  of 
Fernando  de  Talavera,  prior  of  the  Prado.  This  council 
consisted  of  the  men  the  most  versed  in  divine  and  hu 
man  knowledge  in  the  two  kingdoms.  It  assembled  in 
this  the  literary  capital  of  Spain,  in  the  Dominican  convent 
in  which  Columbus  was  received  as  a  guest.  At  that  time 
priests  and  monks  managed  every  thing  in  Spain.  Civil 
ization  was  of  the  sanctuary.  Kings  were  only  concerned 
with  acts  :  ideas  belonged  to  the  priest.  The  Inquisition 
— a  sacerdotal  police — watched,  reached,  and  struck  all 
that  savored  of  heresy,  even  at  the  foot  of  the  throne. 

To  this  council  the  king  had  added  the  professors  of  as-s 
tronomy,  of  geography,  of  mathematics,  and  of  all  the  sci 
ences  taught  at  Salamanca.  The  audience  did  not  alarm 
Columbus.  He  expected  to  be  tried  by  his  peers,  but  he 
was  only  tried  by  his  despisers.  The  first  time  he  ap 
peared  in  the  great  hall  of  the  convent,  the  monks  and  so- 
called  wise  men,  convinced  beforehand  that  all  theories 
surpassing  their  ignorance  or  their  routine  were  but  the 
dreams  of  a  diseased  or  arrogant  mind,  saw  in  this  obscure 
foreigner  only  an  adventurer  seeking  his  fortune  by  these 
chimeras.  None  deigned  to  listen  to  him  save  two  or 
three  friars  of  the  convent  of  St.  Stephen  of  Salamanca, 
obscure  monks  without  any  influence,  who  devoted  them 
selves  in  their  cells  to  studies  despised  by  the  superior 
clergy.  The  other  examiners  of  Columbus  puzzled  him 
by  quotations  from  the  Bible,  the  Prophets,  the  Psalms, 
the  Gospels,  and  the  fathers  of  the  Church,  who  demolish 
ed  by  anticipation,  and  by  indisputable  texts,  the  theory 
of  the  globe,  and  the  absurd  and  impious  idea  of  antipo 
des.  Among  others,  Lactantius  had  expressed  himself  de 
liberately  on  this  subject  in  a  passage  which  was  cited  to 
Columbus  :  "Can  any  thing  be  more  absurd,"  Lactantius 
writes,  "  than  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  antipodes  hav- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  161 

ing  their  feet  opposed  to  ours — men  who  walk  with  their 
feet  in  the  air  and  their  heads  down,  in  a  part  of  the 
world  where  every  thing  is  topsy-turvy — the  trees  grow 
ing  with  their  roots  in  the  air,  and  their  branches  in  the 
earth  ?"  St.  Augustine  had  gone  further,  branding  with 
impiety  the  mere  belief  in  antipodes  ;  "  for,"  he  said,  "  it 
would  involve  the  supposition  of  nations  not  descended 
from  Adam.  Now  the  Bible  says  that  all  men  are  de 
scended  from  one  and  the  same  father."  Other  doctors, 
taking  a  poetical  metaphor  for  a  system  of  cosmogony, 
quoted  to  the  geographer  the  verse  of  the  psalm  in  which 
it  is  said  that  God  spread  the  sky  above  the  earth  as  a 
tent ;  from  which  it  followed,  they  said,  that  the  earth 
was  flat. 

In  vain  Columbus  replied  to  his  examiners  with  a  piety 
which  did  not  clash  with  nature  ;  in  vain,  following  them 
respectfully  into  the  province  of  theology,  he  proved  him 
self  more  religious  and  more  orthodox  than  they,  because 
more  intelligent  and  more  reverent  of  the  works  of  God. 
His  eloquence,  enhanced  by  truth,  lost  all  its  power  and 
brilliancy  amid  the  willful  darkness  of  their  obstinate  igno 
rance.     A  few  monks  only  appeared  either  doubtful  or  con 
vinced  that  Columbus  was  right.     Diego  de  Deza,  a  Do 
minican  friar — a  man  beyond  his  age,  and  who  afterward 
became  Archbishop  of  Toledo— ventured  boldly  to  oppose 
the  prejudices  of  the  council,  and  to  give  the  weight  of  his 
word  and  his  influence  to  Columbus.     Even  this  unex 
pected  assistance  could  not  overcome  the  indifference  or 
obstinacy  of  the  examiners.     The  conferences  were  many, 
without  coming  to  a  definite  conclusion.     They  still  lin 
gered,  and  avoided  truth  by  delay,  the  last  refuge  of  error. 
They  were  interrupted  by  a  fresh  contest  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  with  the  Moors  of  Granada.     Columbus— sorrow 
ful,  despised,  put  off,  and  dismissed,  encouraged  only  by 
the  favor  of  Isabella  and  the  conversion  of  Diego  de  Deza 
to  his  views— followed  in  miserable  plight  the  court  and 
the  army,  from  camp  to  camp,  and  from  town  to  town, 


162  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

waiting  in  vain  for  an  hour's  attention,  which  the  din  of 
war  prevented  him  from  receiving.  The  queen,  however, 
as  faithful  to  him  in  her  secret  favor  as  fortune  was  cruel, 
continued  to  hope  well  of,  and  to  protect,  this  disowned 
genius.  She  had  a  house  or  a  tent  reserved  for  Columbus 
wherever  the  court  stopped.  Her  treasurer  was  instructed 
to  provide  for  the  learned  foreigner — not  as  for  an  unde- 
sired  guest  who  demands  hospitality,  but  as  a  distinguished 
stranger,  who  honors  the  kingdom  by  his  presence,  and 
whom  the  sovereigns  wish  to  retain  in  their  service 

Thus  passed  several  years,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
Kings  of  Portugal,  England,  and  France,  hearing  through 
their  embassadors  of  this  strange  man  who  promised  mon- 
archs  a  new  world,  made  overtures  to  Columbus  to  enter 
into  their  service.  The  deep  gratitude  he  owed  to  Isabella, 
and  his  love  for  Donna  Beatrice  Enriquez  of  Cordova,  al 
ready  the  mother  of  his  second  son,  Fernando,  made  him 
reject  these  offers,  and  remain  a  follower  of  the  court.  He 
reserved  to  the  young  queen  an  empire  in  return  for  her 
kindness  to  him.  He  was  present  at  the  siege  and  con 
quest  of  Granada.  He  saw  Boabdil  give  up  to  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  the  keys  of  his  capital,  the  palace  of  the  Aben- 
cerrages,  and  the  domes  of  the  Alhambra.  He  took  part 
in  the  procession  which  escorted  the  Spanish  sovereigns 
in  their  triumphal  entry  into  this  last  refuge  of  Islam.  He 
was  already  looking  beyond  the  ramparts  and  vega  of 
Granada  to  fresh  conquests,  and  other  triumphal  entries 
into  vaster  territories.  Compared  with  the  greatness  of 
his  ideas,  every  thing  seemed  small. 

The  peace  which  followed  this  conquest  in  1492  caused 
a  second  assembly  of  examiners  of  his  plans  at  Seville  to 
give  their  advice  to  the  crown.  This  advice,  long  opposed, 
as  at  Salamanca,  by  Diego  de  Deza,  was  to  reject  the  offer 
of  the  Genoese  adventurer,  if  not  as  impious,  at  least  as 
chimerical,  and  as  compromising  the  dignity  of  the  Spanish 
crown,  which  could  not  undertake  an  enterprise  on  such 
slender  prospects.  Ferdinand,  however,  influenced  by 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  163 

Isabella,  in  communicating  this  decision  of  the  council, 
softened  its  harshness,  and  gave  him  to  understand  that  as 
soon  as  he  was  in  quiet  possession  of  Spain  by  the  complete 
expulsion  of  the  Moors,  the  court  would  assist  him  with 
money  and  ships  in  this  expedition  of  discovery  and  con 
quest  for  which  he  had  pressed  for  so  many  years. 

"While  waiting,  without  too  sanguine  hopes,  the  ever- 
delayed  accomplishment  of  the  king's  promises,  and  the 
sincere  wishes  of  Isabella,  Columbus  tried  to  persuade  two 
great  Spanish  nobles,  the  Dukes  of  Medina  Sidonia  and 
Medina  Celi,  to  carry  out  this  enterprise  at  their  own  ex 
pense.  Each  possessed  ports  and  ships  on  the  Spanish 
coast.  They  first  smiled  at  these  prospects  of  glory  and 
maritime  possessions  for  their  own  families,  and  then  aban 
doned  them  through  incredulity  or  indifference.  Envy 
preyed  on  Columbus  even  before  he  had  earned  it  by  suc 
cess  ;  it  persecuted  him  by  anticipation  and  by  instinct 
even  through  his  hopes  ;  it  contested  with  him  even  what 
it  termed  his  follies.  He  again,  with  tears,  gave  up  his 
endeavors.  The  unwillingness  of  the  ministers  to  listen 
to  him,  the  obstinacy  of  the  priests  in  opposing  his  ideas 
as  a  scientific  impiety,  the  vain  promises  and  eternal  de 
lays  of  the  court,  threw  him,  after  six  years'  trial,  into  such 
discouragement,  that  he  finally  gave  up  all  idea  of  again 
soliciting  the  government  of  Spain,  and  resolved  to  go  and 
offer  his  undiscovered  empire  to  the  King  of  France,  from 
whom  he  had  already  received  overtures. 

Ruined  in  fortune,  disappointed  in  hope,  worn  out  by 
delay,  and  heart-broken  at  the  necessity  of  quitting  Donna 
Beatrice,  he  again  set  out  on  foot  from  Cordova,  without 
any  views  for  the  future  except  to  seek  out  his  faithful 
friend,  the  prior  Juan  Perez,  in  the  convent  of  Rabida. 
He  intended  to  fetch  his  son  Diego,  whom  he  had  left 
there — to  bring  him  back  to  Cordova,  and  to  place  him,  be 
fore  leaving  for  France,  under  the  care  of  Donna  Beatrice, 
the  mother  of  his  natural  son  Fernando.  The  brothers, 
thus  brought  up  together  by  the  care  of  one  woman,  would 


104  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

love  each  other  with  a  fraternal  affection,  the  only  inher 
itance  he  had  to  leave  them. 

Tears  flowed  from  the  eyes  of  the  prior  Juan  Perez  at 
seeing  his  friend  coming  on  foot,  more  miserably  clad  than 
at  first,  to  knock  at  the  gate  of  the  convent,  sufficiently  at 
testing,  by  the  shabbiness  of  his  clothes  and  the  sadness 
of  his  face,  the  incredulity  of  men  and  the  ruin  of  his 
hopes.  But  Providence  had  again  hidden  the  key  of  Co- 
lumbus's  fortune  in  the  bosom  of  friendship.  The  poor 
friar's  faith  in  the  truth  and  future  discoveries  of  his  pro 
tege,  instead  of  discouraging,  made  him  bear  up  against  it, 
with  a  kindly  indignation  at  his  disappointment.  He  em 
braced  his  guest,  condoled  and  wept  with  him ;  but  soon, 
recalling  all  his  energy  and  resolution,  sent  to  Palos  for  the 
physician  Fernandez,  his  old  confidant  in  the  mysterious 
projects  of  Columbus,  Alonzo  Pinzon,  a  rich  seaman  of  that 
port,  and  Sebastian  Rodriguez,  a  skillful  pilot  of  Lepi. 
The  ideas  of  Columbus,  again  unfolded  before  this  little 
conclave  of  friends,  raised  the  fanaticism  of  his  audience 
still  higher  than  before.  They  begged  of  him  to  stay  and 
try  his  fortune  again,  and  to  reserve  for  Spain,  though  un 
believing  and  ungrateful,  the  glory  of  an  enterprise  unri 
valled  in  history.  Pinzon  promised  to  assist  with  his 
wealth  and  his  vessels  the  equipment  of  this  memorable 
flotilla  as  soon  as  the  government  should  consent  to  sanc 
tion  it.  Juan  Perez  wrote,  not  now  to  the  confessor,  but 
to  the  queen  herself,  to  interest  her  conscience  as  much  as 
her  glory  in  an  enterprise  which  would  convert  whole  na 
tions  from  idolatry  to  religion.  He  spoke  in  the  name  of 
heaven  and  of  earth ;  he  drew  warmth  and  persuasion 
from  his  desire  for  the  greatness  of  his  country  and  from 
his  personal  friendship.  Columbus,  thoroughly  discour 
aged,  refusing  to  take  this  letter  to  a  court  of  which  he 
had  so  long  experienced  the  delays  and  neglect,  the  pilot 
Rodriguez  undertook  to  carry  it  himself  to  Granada,  where 
the  court  then  resided.  He  set  out,  followed  by  the  vows 
and  prayers  of  the  convent,  and  of  the  friends  of  Columbus 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  165 

at  Palos.  The  fourteenth  day  after  his  departure,  he  came 
back  in  triumph  to  the  monastery.  The  queen  had  read 
the  letter  of  Juan  Perez,  and  while  reading  it,  all  her  pre 
possessions  in  favor  of  the  Genoese  mariner  had  returned. 
She  sent  for  the  venerable  prior  to  come  instantly  to  her 
court,  and  desired  Columbus  to  await,  at  the  convent  of 
La  Rabida,  the  return  of  the  monk  and  the  decision  of 
the  council. 

Juan  Perez,  delighted  with  his  friend's  good  fortune, 
saddled  his  mule  without  losing  an  hour,  and  set  out  by 
night,  alone,  to  cross  a  country  infested  with  Moors.  He 
felt  that  in  him  Heaven  protected  the  great  design  which 
he  held  in  trust  for  his  friend.  He  arrived  ;  the  gates  of 
the  palace  were  opened  to  him ;  he  saw  the  queen,  and 
aroused  in  her,  by  the  strength  of  his  own  conviction,  the 
faith  and  zeal  which  she  herself  felt  for  this  great  work. 
The  Marchioness  of  Maya,  Isabella's  favorite,  interested 
herself  from  enthusiasm  and  pity  in  the  holy  friar's  pro 
tege.  The  hearts  of  two  women,  involved  by  the  elo 
quence  of  a  monk  in  the  projects  of  an  adventurer,  tri 
umphed  over  the  opposition  of  the  court.  Isabella  sent 
Columbus  a  sum  of  money  from  her  private  treasury  to 
purchase  a  mule  and  clothes,  and  directed  him  to  come 
at  once  to  court.  Juan  Perez  remained  with  her,  to  sup 
port  his  friend  by  his  exertions  and  influence,  and  for 
warded  the  news  and  the  pecuniary  succors  to  Rabida  by 
a  messenger,  who  gave  the  letter  and  the  money  to  the 
physician,  Fernandez  of  Palos,  to  be  handed  over  to  Co 
lumbus. 

Having  bought  a  mule  and  hired  a  servant,  Columbus 
went  to  Granada,  and  was  admitted  to  discuss  his  plans 
and  requirements  with  the  ministers  of  Ferdinand. 
"Then  was  seen,"  says  an  eye-witness,  "an  obscure  and 
unknown  follower  of  the  court,  classed  by  the  ministers  of 
the  two  crowns  among  the  troublesome  applicants,  feed 
ing  his  imagination  in  the  corners  of  the  antechambers 
with  the  magnificent  project  of  discovering  a  new  world; 


166  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

grave,  melancholy,  and  depressed  amid  the  public  rejoic 
ing,  he  seemed  to  look  with  indifference  upon  the  comple 
tion  of  the  conquest  of  Granada,  which  filled  with  pride  a 
nation  and  two  courts.  This  man  was  Christopher  Co 
lumbus!" 

This  time  the  obstacles  were  raised  by  Columbus. 
Certain  of  the  continent  which  he  offered  Spain,  he  wish 
ed,  even  out  of  respect  to  the  greatness  of  the  gift  he 
was  about  to  make  to  the  world  and  to  his  sovereigns,  to 
obtain  for  himself  and  his  descendants  conditions  wor 
thy,  not  of  his  position,  but  of  his  work.  If  he  had  been 
wanting  in  proper  pride,  he  would  have  thought  himself 
wanting  in  faith  in  God  and  the  worthiness  of  his  mission. 
Poor,  unsupported,  and  dismissed,  he  treated  of  posses 
sions  which  he  as  yet  only  saw  in  thought,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  monarch.  "A  beggar,"  said  Fernandez  de  Tala- 
vera,  president  of  the  council,  "  stipulates  with  kings  for 
royal  conditions."  He  demanded  the  title  and  privileges 
of  admiral,  the  rank  and  power  of  viceroy  over  all  the 
lands  his  discoveries  might  annex  to  Spain,  and  the  per 
petuity  of  the  title,  for  himself  and  his  descendants,  with 
all  the  revenues  of  these  possessions.  "  Singular  de 
mands  for  an  adventurer,"  said  his  enemies  in  the  coun 
cil  :  "  they  secure  to  him  beforehand  the  command  of  a 
fleet,  and,  if  he  succeeds,  an  unlimited  viceroyalty,  while 
he  undertakes  nothing  in  case  of  failure,  because,  in  his 
present  poverty,  he  has  nothing  to  lose." 

These  requirements  at  first  excited  astonishment,  and 
at  last  indignation :  he  was  offered  conditions  less  bur 
densome  to  the  crown.  Notwithstanding  his  indigence 
and  his  misery,  he  refused  all.  Wearied,  but  not  over 
come,  by  eighteen  years  of  expectation  from  the  day  that 
he  had  conceived  his  idea  and  offered  it  in  vain  to  the 
Christian  powers,  he  would  have  blushed  to  abate  one 
jot  of  his  price  for  the  gift  that  God  had  given  him.  He 
respectfully  retired  from  the  conference  with  Ferdinand's 
commissioners,  and  mounting  his  mule,  the  gift  of  the 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  iQ7 

queen,  alone  and  unprovided,  he  took  the  road  to  Cordo 
va,  to  proceed  from  thence  to  France. 

Isabella,  hearing  of  her  protege's  departure,  seemed  to 
have  a  presentiment  that  these  great  prospects  were  de 
serting  her  with  this  man  of  destiny.  She  was  indig 
nant  at  the  commissioners,  who,  she  said,  were  haggling 
with  God  for  the  price  of  an  empire,  and  especially  of  mill 
ions  of  souls  whom  their  fault  would  leave  to  idolatry. 
The  Marchioness  of  Maya,  and  Quintanilla,  Isabella's 
treasurer,  shared  and  encouraged  these  feelings.  The 
king,  cooler  and  more  calculating,  hesitated :  the  expense 
of  the  undertaking,  and  an  empty  treasury,  made  him 
hold  back.  "Well !"  said  Isabella,  in  a  transport  of  gen 
erous  enthusiasm,  "  I  will  undertake  the  enterprise  alone, 
for  my  own  crown  of  Castile.  I  will  pawn  my  diamonds 
and  jewels  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  expedition." 

This  womanly  burst  of  feeling  triumphed  over  the 
king's  economy,  and,  by  a  nobler  estimate,  acquired  incal 
culable  treasures  in  wealth  and  territory  to  the  two  king 
doms.  Disinterestedness,  inspired  by  enthusiasm,  is  the 
true  economy  of  great  minds,  and  the  true  wisdom  of 
great  politicians. 

The  steps  of  the  fugitive  were  followed.  The  queen's 
messenger  overtook  him  a  few  leagues  from  Granada,  on 
the  bridge  of  Finos,  in  the  famous  defile  where  the  Moors 
and  Christians  had  so  often  mixed  their  blood  in  the  tor 
rent  which  separates  the  two  races.  Columbus,  much 
moved,  returned  to  the  feet  of  Isabella.  Her  tears  ob 
tained  from  Ferdinand  the  ratification  of  his  conditions. 
While  serving  the  hopeless  cause  of  this  great  man,  she 
thought  she  was  serving  the  cause  of  God  himself,  un 
known  to  that  part  of  the  human  race  which  he  was  to 
bring  over  to  the  faith.  She  thought  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  in  the  possessions  which  her  favorite  was  to  ac 
quire  for  the  empire.  Ferdinand  only  saw  the  earth  ly 
kingdom.  The  champion  of  Christendom  in  Spain,  and 
conqueror  of  the  Moors,  as  many  of  the  faithful  as  he 


168  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

brought  over  to  the  faith  of  Rome,  so  many  subjects  had 
the  Pope  added  to  his  rule.  The  millions  of  men  whom 
he  was  to  rally  round  the  Cross  by  the  discoveries  of  this 
stranger,  had  been  by  anticipation  given  over  to  his  ex 
clusive  dominion  by  the  court  of  Rome.  Every  one  who 
was  not  a  Christian  was  in  its  eyes  a  slave  as  of  right. 
Every  portion  of  the  human  race  not  stamped  with  the 
seal  of  Christianity  stood  without  the  pale  of  humanity. 
It  gave  or  exchanged  them  away  in  the  name  of  its  spir 
itual  supremacy  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  Ferdinand  was 
sufficiently  credulous,  and,  at  the  same  time,  sufficiently 
cunning  to  accept  them. 

The  treaty  between  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  and  this 
poor  Genoese  adventurer,  who  had  arrived  in  their  capital 
on  foot  some  years  before,  and  had  no  other  refuge  than 
the  hospitality  of  the  convent  porch,  was  signed  in  the 
plain  of  Granada  on  the  17th  of  April,  1492.  Isabella  took 
upon  herself,  on  behalf  of  her  kingdom  of  Castile,  all  the 
expenses  of  the  expedition.  It  was  right  that  she,  who  had 
first  believed  in  the  enterprise,  should  encounter  the  great 
est  risk,  and  it  was  also  right  that  the  glory  and  honor  of 
success  should  be  attached  to  her  name  rather  than  to  any 
other.  The  little  haven  of  Palos  in  Andalusia  was  assign 
ed  to  Columbus  as  the  place  of  equipment  for  his  expedi 
tion,  and  the  port  from  which  his  squadron  was  to  sail. 
The  idea  conceived  at  the  convent  of  La  Rabida,  near  Pa 
los,  by  Juan  Perez  and  his  friends,  in  their  first  interview 
with  Columbus,  thus  returned  to  the  place  of  its  birth. 
The  prior  of  the  convent  was  to  take  charge  of  the  ar 
rangements,  and  to  see  from  his  retreat  the  first  sails  of  his 
friend  spread  for  that  new  world  which  they  had  both  be 
held  with  the  eye  of  genius  and  of  faith. 

Numberless  unforeseen  impediments,  to  all  appearance 
insurmountable,  now  crossed  the  favors  of  Isabella  and  the 
fulfillment  of  Ferdinand's  promises.  The  royal  treasury 
was  short  of  money.  Vessels  were  leaving  the  Spanish 
ports  on  more  urgent  expeditions.  The  seamen  refused  to 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  169 

engage  for  so  long  and  mysterious  a  voyage,  or  deserted 
after  enlistment.  The  towns  of  the  sea-coast,  ordered  by 
the  court  to  supply  the  vessels,  hesitated  to  obey,  and  un 
rigged  their  ships,  which  were  commonly  considered  as  de 
voted  to  certain  destruction.  Unbelief,  fear,  envy,  ridi 
cule,  avarice,  and  even  mutiny,  again  and  again  rendered 
useless  to  Columbus,  even  in  spite  of  the  royal  officers, 
the  means  of  equipment  which  the  favor  of  Isabella  had 
placed  at  his  disposal.  It  seemed  as  though  some  evil 
genius,  obstinately  struggling  against  the  genius  of  the 
world's  unity,  tried  to  keep  separate  forever  these  two  con 
tinents  which  the  mind  of  one  man  wished  to  unite. 

Columbus  superintended  every  thing  from  the  monas 
tery  of  La  Rabida,  where  he  was  again  the  guest  of  his 
friend  the  prior,  Juan  Perez.  Without  the  intervention  and 
influence  of  the  poor  monk  the  expedition  would  again 
have  failed.  The  orders  of  the  court  were  powerless  and 
disobeyed.  The  monk  had  recourse  to  his  friends  at  Pa- 
los.  They  yielded  to  his  conviction,  his  entreaties,  and  his 
advice.  Three  brothers,  wealthy  mariners  at  Palos,  the 
Pinzons,  were  at  last  imbued  with  the  faith  and  spirit 
which  inspired  the  friend  of  Columbus.  They  imagined 
they  heard  the  voice  of  God  in  that  old  man.  They  vol 
unteered  to  join  in  the  undertaking :  they  found  the  money, 
they  equipped  three  vessels  of  the  kind  then  called  Cara- 
vcllas,  hired  seamen  in  the  little  harbors  of  Palos  and  Mo- 
guer,  and,  in  order  to  give  an  impulse  and  an  example  of 
courage  to  their  sailors,  two  of  the  three  brothers,  Martin 
Alonzo  Pinzon  and  Vincent  Yanes  Pinzon,  resolved  to  em 
bark,  and  to  take  command  in  person  of  their  own  vessels. 
Thanks  to  this  generous  assistance  from  the  Pinzons,  three 
ships,  or  rather  boats,  the  Santa  Maria,  the  Pinta,  and  the 
Nina,  were  ready  to  put  to  sea  on  Friday,  the  3d  of  Au 
gust,  1492. 

At  break  of  day,  Columbus,  escorted  down  to  the  shore 
by  the  prior  and  monks  of  the  convent  of  La  Rabida,  who 
blessed  the  sea  and  his  vessels,  embraced  his  son,  whom 

VOL.  ].— H 


170  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

he  left  under  the  care  of  Juan  Perez,  and  embarked  in  the 
largest  of  his  three  barks,  the  Santa  Maria,  on  board  of 
which  he  hoisted  his  flag  as  admiral  of  an  unknown  sea 
and  viceroy  of  undiscovered  lands.  The  people  of  the  two 
harbors  and  of  the  coast  came  down  to  the  shore  in  crowds 
to  be  present  at  their  departure  on  a  voyage  from  which 
it  was  generally  supposed  there  would  be  no  return.  It 
was  a  mourning  procession  rather  than  an  augury  of  a 
happy  result:  there  was  more  sorrow  than  hope,  more 
tears  than  hurrahs.  The  mothers,  wives,  and  sisters  of 
the  seamen  secretly  cursed  the  fatal  stranger,  whose  en 
chanted  words  had  seduced  the  mind  of  the  queen,  and 
who  risked  so  many  men's  lives  on  the  accomplishment  of 
a  dream.  Columbus,  unwillingly  followed,  like  all  men 
who  lead  a  nation  beyond  the  pale  of  its  prejudices,  launch 
ed  upon  the  unknown  expanse  amid  maledictions  and  com 
plaints.  Such  is  the  law  of  human  nature.  All  that  sur 
passes  humanity,  even  to  conquer  an  idea,  a  truth,  or  a 
world,  makes  it  complain.  Man  is  like  the  ocean,  with  a 
restlessness  tending  to  movement,  and  an  inertia  inclining 
to  repose.  From  these  two  opposite  tendencies  arises  the 
equilibrium  of  his  nature.  Woe  to  him  that  disturbs  it! 

The  appearance  of  this  little  flotilla,  scarcely  equal  to  a 
fishing  or  coasting  squadron,  offered  a  strong  contrast  in  the 
people's  eyes  to  the  magnitude  of  the  dangers  it  was  so 
rashly  going  to  brave.  Of  the  three  vessels,  only  one  was 
decked,  that  on  board  of  which  he  himself  was  ;  a  crank 
and  narrow  trading  craft,  already  very  old  and  weather- 
beaten.  The  others  were  open  boats,  which  a  heavy 
breaker  might  have  swamped.  But  the  poop  and  fore 
castle  of  these  vessels,  raised  high  out  of  the  water  like 
the  ancient  galleys,  had  two  half  decks,  under  which  the 
sailors  could  find  shelter  in  bad  weather,  and  would  pre 
vent  the  caravella  from  foundering  if  she  shipped  a  sea. 
They  had  two  masts,  one  amidships  and  the  other  aft.  On 
the  foremast  they  carried  one  great  square  sail,  and  on  the 
other  a  triangular  latteen  sail.  In  calm  weather,  long 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  171 

sweeps,  used  but  seldom  and  then  with  difficulty,  fixed  in 
the  low  gunwale  of  the  caravella's  waist,  could,  in  case  of 
need,  give  slow  motion  to  the  vessel.  These  three  ships 
of  unequal  size  contained  the  120  men  of  whom  the  crews 
were  composed.  He  alone  went  on  board  with  a  calm 
face,  a  firm  countenance,  and  a  courageous  heart.  His  con 
jectures  had  assumed  in  his  mind,  after  the  lapse  of  eight 
een  years,  the  shape  of  certainty.  Although  he  was  even 
then  past  the  term  of  middle  life,  being  in  his  fifty-seventh 
year,  he  looked  upon  the  years  that  had  gone  by  as  though 
they  were  nothing.  In  his  idea,  all  his  life  was  to  come. 
He  felt  the  youthfulness  of  hope  and  his  future  immortal 
ity.  As  if  to  take  possession  of  those  worlds  for  which  he 
spread  his  sails,  he  wrote  and  published,  before  embarking, 
a  solemn  account  of  all  the  vicissitudes  his  mind  and  for 
tunes  had  passed  through  up  to  that  period  in  the  concep 
tion  and  execution  of  his  design ;  he  added  an  enumera 
tion  of  all  the  titles,  honors,  and  dignities  with  which  he 
had  been  invested  by  his  sovereigns  in  respect  of  his  fu 
ture  possessions ;  and  he  invoked  God  and  man  to  support 
his  faith  and  bear  witness  to  his  constancy.  "  And  it  is 
for  this  purpose,"  he  says,  in  concluding  his  proclamation 
to  the  Old  and  New  Worlds,  "  that  I  have  determined  nev 
er  to  sleep  during  this  navigation,  and  until  these  things 
shall  have  been  accomplished." 

A  favorable  wind  from  Europe  wafted  them  toward  the 
Canaries,  the  last  resting-place  of  those  who  sailed  into 
the  Atlantic.  Although  he  gave  thanks  to  God  for  these 
auguries  which  calmed  the  minds  of  his  crew,  he  would 
have  preferred  that  a  gale  had  swept  him  in  full  sail  out 
of  the  beaten  track  of  vessels.  He  feared,  with  reason, 
that  the  sight  of  land  so  far  from  Spain  might  recall  the 
fond  idea  of  home  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  sailors 
who  had  hesitated  to  embark.  In  momentous  enterprises, 
no  time  must  be  given  to  men  for  reflection,  and  no  oppor 
tunity  for  repentance.  Columbus  knew  this,  and  he  burn 
ed  to  pass  the  limits  of  the  well-known  waters,  and  to  lock 


172  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

in  his  own  breast  the  possibility  of  returning,  and  the  se 
cret  of  the  track,  of  his  charts,  and  his  compass.  His  im 
patience  to  lose  sight  of  the  coasts  of  the  Old  World  was 
but  too  well  founded.  One  of  his  ships,  the  Pinta,  which 
had  the  rudder  broken  and  leaked  in  the  hold,  obliged  him, 
much  against  his  inclination,  to  put  into  the  Canaries  to 
change  this  vessel  for  another.  He  lost  three  weeks  in 
these  ports,  without  being  able  to  find  any  craft  fit  for  his 
long  voyage.  All  he  could  do  was  to  repair  the  Pinta 's 
damage,  and  procure  a  new  sail  for  the  Nina,  his  third 
vessel,  a  heavy  and  slow  sailer,  which  delayed  his  voy 
age.  He  took  in  fresh  provisions  and  water,  for  the  small 
stowage  in  his  open  vessels  only  allowed  him  to  carry 
victuals  for  his  crews  of  120  men  for  a  limited  number  of 
days. 

On  quitting  the  Canaries,  the  appearance  of  the  Peak 
of  Teneriffe,  whose  eruption  illumined  the  heavens  and 
was  reflected  in  the  sea,  cast  terror  into  the  minds  of  his 
seamen.  They  thought  they  saw  in  it  the  flaming  sword 
of  the  angel  who  expelled  the  first  man  from  Eden,  driv- 
ino-  back  the  children  of  Adam  from  the  entrance  to  the 

O 

forbidden  seas  and  lands.  The  admiral  passed  from  ship 
to  ship  to  disperse  this  general  panic,  and  to  explain  sci 
entifically  to  these  simple  people  the  physical  laws  of  the 
phenomenon.  But  the  disappearance  of  the  volcano's 
peak,  as  it  sank  below  the  horizon,  caused  them  as  much 
sadness  as  the  eruption  had  caused  them  fright.  It  was 
their  last  beacon,  the  farthest  sea-mark  of  the  Old  World. 
Losing  sight  of  it  seemed  to  be  losing  the  last  traces  of 
their  road  through  immeasurable  space.  They  felt  as  if 
they  were  detached  from  earth,  and  sailing  in  the  atmos 
phere  of  a  new  planet.  They  were  seized  with  a  general 
prostration  of  mind  and  body,  like  spectres  who  have  lost 
even  their  tombs.  The  admiral  again  called  them  round 
him  in  his  own  ship,  infusing  his  own  energy  into  their 
minds  ;  and  giving  way,  like  the  prophet  of  the  future,  to 
the  inspiring  eloquence  of  his  hopes,  he  described  to  them, 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  173 

as  if  he  had  already  beheld  them,  the  lands,  the  islands, 
the  seas,  the  kingdoms,  the  riches,  the  vegetation,  the  sun 
shine,  the  mines  of  gold,  the  sands  covered  with  pearls, 
the  mountains  shining  with  precious  stones,  the  plains 
loaded  with  spice,  that  to  his  mind's  eye  already  loomed 
in  sight,  beyond  the  expanse  of  which  each  wave  carried 
them  nearer  to  these  wonders  and  enjoyments.  These 
images,  tinged  with  the  brilliant  colors  of  their  leader's 
rich  imagination,  infused  hope  and  spirit  into  their  dis 
couraged  minds  ;  and  the  trade-winds,  blowing  constantly 
and  gently  from  the  east,  seemed  to  second  the  impatience 
of  the  seamen.  The  distance  alone  could  now  terrify 
them.  To  deceive  them  as  to  the  space  across  which  he 
was  hurrying,  Columbus  used  to  subtract  a  certain  num 
ber  of  leagues  from  his  reckoning,  and  made  his  pilots 
and  seamen  think  they  had  only  gone  half  the  distance 
they  had  actually  traversed.  Privately,  and  for  himself 
alone,  he  noted  the  true  reckoning,  in  order  that  he  alone 
might  know  the  number  of  waves  he  had  crossed  and  the 
track  of  his  path,  which  he  wished  to  keep  unknown  to 
his  rivals.  And,  indeed,  the  crews,  deceived  by  the  stead 
iness  of  the  wind,  and  the  long  roll  of  the  waves,  thought 
they  were  slowly  crossing  the  farthest  seas  of  Europe. 

He  would  also  have  wished  to  conceal  from  them  a  new 
phenomenon,  which  began  to  disconcert  his  own  science 
at  about  200  leagues  from  Teneriffe.  It  was  the  variation 
of  the  magnetic  compass,  his  last,  and,  as  he  thought,  his 
infallible  guide,  but  which  now  began  to  vacillate  before 
its  approach  to  an  untracked  hemisphere.  For  several 
days  he  kept  to  himself  this  terrible  doubt ;  but  the  pilots, 
who  watched  the  binnacle  as  closely  as  he  did  himself, 
soon  discovered  this  variation.  Seized  with  the  same  as 
tonishment  as  their  chief,  but  less  firm  in  their  resolution 
to  brave  even  Nature  herself,  they  imagined  that  the  very 
elements  were  troubled,  or  changed  the  laws  of  their  ex 
istence  on  the  verge  of  infinite  space.  The  supposed  gid 
diness  of  Nature  afiected  their  minds.  The  evil  tidings 


174  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

passed  from  one  pale  face  to  another,  and  they  left  their 
vessels  to  the  direction  of  the  winds  and  waves,  now  the 
only  guides  that  remained.     The  hesitation  of  the  pilots 
paralyzed  all  the  sailors.     Columbus,  who  endeavored  in 
vain  to  explain  to  himself  a  mystery  of  which  science  still 
seeks  the  cause,  had  again  recourse  to  his  fertile  imagina 
tion,  the  internal  guide  with  which  nature  had  endowed 
him.      He  invented    an  explanation,  false,  but  specious 
enough  to  unenducated  minds,  of  the  variation  of  the  mag 
netic  needle.     He   attributed  it  to  new  stars  revolving 
round  the  pole,  whose  alternating  motion  in  the  sky  was 
followed  by  the  compass.     This  explanation,  according 
with  the  astrological  notions  of  the  day,  satisfied  the  pi 
lots,  and  their  credulity  renewed  the  faith  of  the  sailors. 
The  sight  of  a  heron  and  of  a  tropical  bird,  which  came 
next  day,  and  flew  round  the  masts  of  the  squadron,  acted 
upon  their  senses,  as  the  admiral's  explanation  had  sway 
ed  their  minds.     They  appeared  two  witnesses  who  came 
to  confirm  by  ocular  demonstration  the  reasoning  of  Co 
lumbus.     They  sailed  with  more  courage  on  the  faith  of 
these  birds.     The  mild,  equable,  and  serene  climate  on 
this  part  of  the  ocean,  the  clearness  of  the  sky,  the  trans 
parency  of  the  waves,  the  dolphins  playing  across  their 
bows,  the  warmth   of  the  air,  the  perfumes  which  the 
waves  brought  from  afar,  and  seemed  to  exhale  from  their 
foam,  the  greater  brilliancy  of  the  stars  and  constellations 
by  night — every  thing  in  these  latitudes  seemed  to  breathe 
a  feeling  of  serenity,  bringing  conviction  to  their  minds. 
They  felt  the  presentiment  of  the  still  invisible  world. 
They  recalled  the  bright  days,  the  clear  stars,  and  the 
shining  nights  of  an  Andalusian  spring.     "  It  only  wanted 
the  nightingale,"  says  Columbus. 

The  sea  also  began  to  bring  its  warnings.     Unknown 

vegetations  were  often  seen  floating  on  its  surface.     Some, 

as  the  historians  of  this  first  voyage  across  the  Atlantic 

.  relate,  were  marine  substances,  which  only  grow  on  the 

shallows  near  the  coast ;  some  were  rock  plants,  that  had 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


175 


been  swept  off  the  cliff's  by  the  waves  ;  some  were  fresh 
water  plants  ;  and  others,  recently  torn  from  their  roots, 
were  still  full  of  sap  ;  one  of  them  carried  a  live  crab — 
a  little  sailor  afloat  on  a  tuft  of  grass.  These  plants  and 
living  creatures  could  not  have  passed  many  days  in  the 
water  without  fading  and  dying.  One  of  those  birds, 
which  never  settle  on  the  waves  or  sleep  on  the  waters, 
crossed  the  sky.  Whence  came  he  ?  Where  was  he  go 
ing  ?  And  could  the  place  of  his  rest  be  far  off"?  Fur 
ther  on,  the  sea  changed  its  temperature  and  its  color,  a 
proof  of  an  uneven  bottom.  Elsewhere  it  resembled  im 
mense  meadows,  and  the  prow  cut  its  way  but  slowly 
among  its  weed-strewn  waves.  At  eve  and  morning,  the 
distant,  waning  clouds,  like  those  which  gather  round  the 
mountain-tops,  took  the  form  of  cliffs  and  hills  skirting 
the  horizon.  The  cry  of  land  was  on  the  tip  of  every 
tongue.  Columbus  was  unwilling  either  to  confirm  or 
entirely  to  extinguish  these  hopes,  which  served  his  pur 
pose  by  encouraging  his  companions.  But  he  thought 
himself  still  only  300  leagues  from  Teneriffe,  and  he  cal 
culated  that  he  had  700  or  800  more  to  go  before  he 
should  reach  the  land  he  sought  for. 

Nevertheless,  he  kept  his  conjectures  to  himself,  finding 
among  his  companions  no  friend  whose  heart  was  firm 
enough  to  support  his  resolution,  or  sufficiently  safe  to  in 
trust  with  his  secret  fears.  During  the  long  passage  he 
conversed  only  with  his  own  thoughts,  with  the  stars,  and 
with  God,  whom  he  felt  to  be  his  protector.  Almost  with 
out  sleep,  as  he  undertook  to  be  in  his  farewell  proclama 
tion  to  the  Old  World,  he  occupied  the  days  in  his  after- 
cabin,  noting  down,  in  characters  intelligible  to  none  but 
himself,  the  degrees  of  latitude,  and  the  space  which  he 
thought  he  had  traversed.  The  nights  he  passed  on  deck 
with  his  pilots,  studying  the  stars,  and  watching  the  sea. 
Alone,  like  Moses  conducting  the  people  of  God  in  the 
desert,  his  thoughtful  gravity  impressed  upon  his  compan 
ions  sometimes  respect,  and  sometimes  a  mistrust  and  awe 


176  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

that  kept  them  aloof — an  isolation  or  distant  bearing  gen 
erally  observable  in  men  superior  to  their  fellows  in  con 
ception  and  determination,  whether  it  be  that  the  inspired 
genius  requires  more  solitude  and  quiet  for  reflection,  or 
whether  the  inferior  minds  whom  they  overawe  fear  to 
approach  too  near  them,  lest  they  may  invite  a  comparison, 
and  be  made  to  feel  their  littleness,  as  contrasted  with  the 
great  men  of  the  earth. 

The  land,  so  often  pointed  out,  was  seen  to  be  only  a 
mirage  deceiving  the  sailors.  Each  morning  the  bows  of 
the  vessels  plunged  through  the  fantastic  horizon,  which 
the  evening  mist  had  made  them  mistake  for  a  shore. 
They  kept  rolling  on  through  the  boundless  and  bottomless 
abyss.  The  very  regularity  and  steadiness  of  the  east 
wind  which  drove  them  on,  without  their  having  had  to 
shift  their  sails  once  in  so  many  days,  was  to  them  a  source 
of  anxiety.  They  fancied  that  this  wind  prevailed  eter 
nally  in  this  region  of  the  great  ocean  which  encircled  the 
world,  and  that,  after  carrying  them  on  so  easily  to  the 
westward,  it  would  be  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  their 
return.  How  should  they  ever  get  back  against  this  cur 
rent  of  contrary  wind  but  by  beating  across  the  immense 
space  ?  And,  if  they  had  to  make  endless  tacks  to  reach 
the  shores  of  the  Old  World,  how  would  their  provisions 
and  water,  already  half  consumed,  hold  out  through  the 
long  months  of  their  return  voyage  ?  Who  could  save 
them  from  the  horrible  prospect  of  dying  of  hunger  and 
thirst  in  this  long  contest  with  the  winds  which  drove 
them  from  their  ports  ?  Several  already  began  to  count 
the  number  of  days,  and  the  rations  fewer  than  the  days, 
and  they  murmured  against  the  fruitless  obstinacy  of  their 
chief,  and  blamed  themselves  secretly  for  persevering  in 
an  obedience  which  sacrificed  the  lives  of  120  men  to  the 
madness  of  one. 

But  each  time  that  the  murmurs  threatened  to  break 
out  into  mutiny,  Providence  seemed  to  send  them  more 
convincing  and  more  unexpected  signs,  which  changed 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  ^77 

their  complaints  to  hope.  Thus,  on  the  20th  of  Septem 
ber,  these  favorable  breezes,  whose  steadiness  caused  such 
alarm,  veered  round  to  the  southwest.  The  sailors  hailed 
this  change,  though  opposed  to  their  course,  as  a  sign  of 
life  and  motion  in  the  elements,  which  made  them  feel  the 
wind  stirring  in  their  sails.  At  evening,  little  birds,  of 
the  most  delicate  species,  that  build  their  nests  in  the 
shrubs  of  the  garden  and  orchard,  hovered  warbling  about 
their  masts.  Their  delicate  wings  and  joyous  notes  bore 
no  marks  of  weariness  or  fright,  as  of  birds  swept  far 
away  to  sea  by  a  storm.  Their  song,  like  those  which  the 
sailors  used  to  hear  amid  the  groves  of  myrtles  and  orange- 
trees  of  their  Andalusian  home,  reminded  them  of  their 
country,  and  invited  them  to  the  now  neighboring  shore. 
They  recognized  sparrows,  which  always  dwell  beneath 
the  roof  of  man.  The  green  weed  on  the  surface  of  the 
waves  looked  like  the  waving  corn  before  the  ear  is  ripe. 
The  vegetation  beneath  the  water  seemed  the  forerunner 
of  land,  and  delighted  the  eyes  of  the  sailors,  tired  of  the 
endless  expanse  of  blue.  But  it  soon  became  so  thick 
that  they  were  afraid  of  entangling  their  rudders  and  keels, 
and  of  remaining  prisoners  in  the  forests  of  ocean,  as  the 
ships  of  the  northern  seas  are  shut  in  by  the  ice.  Thus 
each  joy  soon  changed  to  fear,  so  terrible  to  man  is  the 
unknown.  Columbus,  like  a  guide  seeking  his  way  amid 
the  mysteries  of  the  ocean,  was  obliged  to  appear  to  under 
stand  what  surprised  himself,  and  to  invent  an  explanation, 
for  every  cause  that  astonished  his  seamen. 

The  calms  of  the  tropics  alarmed  them.  If  all  things, 
including  even  the  winds,  perished  in  these  latitudes, 
whence  should  spring  up  the  breeze  to  fill  their  sails  and 
move  their  vessels  ?  The  sea  suddenly  rose  without  wind : 
they  ascribed  it  to  submarine  convulsions  at  the  bottom. 
An  immense  whale  was  seen  sleeping  on  the  waters:  they 
fancied  there  were  monsters  which  would  devour  their 
ships.  The  roll  of  the  waves  drove  them  upon  currents 
which  they  could  not  stem  for  want  of  wind :  they  imag- 

H2 


178  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ined  they  were  approaching  the  cataracts  of  the  ocean, 
and  that  they  were  being  hurried  toward  the  abysses  into 
which  the  deluge  had  poured  its  world  of  waters.  Fierce 
and  angry  faces  crowded  round  the  mast ;  the  murmurs 
rose  louder  and  louder ;  they  talked  of  compelling  the  pi 
lots  to  put  about,  and  of  throwing  the  admiral  into  the  sea 
as  a  madman  who  left  his  companions  no  choice  but  be 
tween  suicide  and  murder.  Columbus,  to  whom  their 
looks  and  threats  revealed  these  plans,  defied  them  by  his 
bold  bearing,  or  disconcerted  them  by  his  coolness. 

Nature  at  length  came  to  his  assistance  by  giving  him 
fresh  breezes  from  the  east  and  a  calm  sea  under  his 
bows.  Before  the  close  of  day,  Alonzo  Pinzon,  in  com 
mand  of  the  Pinta,  which  was  sailing  sufficiently  near  the 
admiral  to  hail  him,  gave  the  first  cry  of"  Land  ho  !"  from 
his  lofty  poop.  All  the  crews,  repeating  this  cry  of  safety, 
life,  and  triumph,  fell  on  their  knees  on  the  decks,  and 
struck  up  the  hymn,  "  Glory  be  to  God  in  heaven  and 
upon  earth." 

This  religious  chant,  the  first  hymn  that  ever  rose  to 
the  Creator  from  the  bosom  of  the  new  ocean,  rolled  slow 
ly  over  the  waves.  When  it  was  over,  all  climbed  as  high 
as  they  could  up  the  masts,  yards,  and  rigging,  to  see  with 
their  own  eyes  the  shore  which  Pinzon  had  discovered  to 
the  southwest.  Columbus  alone  doubted  ;  but  he  was  too 
willing  to  belieye  to  think  of  contradicting  the  fond  hopes 
of  his  crews.  Although  he  himself  only  expected  to  find 
land  to  the  westward,  he  allowed  them  to  steer  south 
through  the  night,  to  please  his  companions,  rather  than 
lose  the  temporary  popularity  caused  by  their  illusion. 
The  sunrise  destroyed  it  but  too  quickly.  The  imaginary 
land  of  Pinzon  disappeared  with  the  morning  mist,  and 
the  admiral  resumed  his  course  to  the  westward. 

Again  the  surface  of  the  sea  was  still,  and  the  uncloud 
ed  sun  was  shining  on  it  as  brightly  as  in  the  blue  sky 
above.  The  rippling  waves  were  foaming  round  the  bows. 
Numberless  dolphins  were  bounding  in  their  wake.  The 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  17g 

water  was  full  of  life  ;  the  flying-fish  leaped  from  their 
element,  and  fell  on  the  decks  of  the  ships.  Every  thing 
in  nature  seemed  to  combine  with  the  efforts  of  Columbus 
in  raising  the  returning  hopes  of  his  sailors,  who  almost 
forgot  how  the  days  passed.  On  the  first  of  October,  they 
thought  they  were  only  600  leagues  beyond  the  usual  track 
of  ships  ;  but  the  secret  reckoning  of  the  admiral  gave 
more  than  800.  The  signs  of  approaching  land  became 
more  frequent  around  them,  yet  none  loomed  in  the  hori 
zon.  Terror  again  took  possession  of  the  crews.  Colum 
bus  himself,  notwithstanding  his  apparent  calmness,  felt 
some  anxiety.  He  feared  lest  he  might  have  passed 
among  the  isles  of  an  archipelago  without  seeing  them, 
and  have  left  behind  him  the  extremity  of  that  Asia  which 
he  sought,  to  wander  in  another  ocean. 

The  lightest  vessel  of  his  squadron,  the  Nina,  which  led 
the  way,  at  length,  on  the  7th  of  October,  hoisted  the  sig 
nal  of  land  in  sight,  and  fired  a  gun  to  announce  it  to  her 
companions.  On  nearing  it,  they  found  that  the  Nina  had 
been  deceived  by  a  cloud.  The  wind,  which  dispersed  it, 
scattered  their  fond  hopes,  and  converted  them  to  fear. 
Nothing  wearies  the  heart  of  man  so  much  as  these  alter 
nations  of  false  hope  and  bitter  disappointment.  They 
are  the  sarcasms  of  fortune.  Reproaches  against  the  ad 
miral  were  heard  from  all  quarters.  It  was  now  no  lon 
ger  for  their  fatigues  and  difficulties  that  they  accused  him, 
but  for  their  lives  hopelessly  sacrificed :  their  bread  and 
water  were  beginning  to  fail. 

Columbus,  disconcerted  by  the  immensity  of  this  space, 
of  which  he  had  hoped  already  to  have  reached  the  bound 
ary,  abandoned  the  ideal  route  he  had  traced  upon  the 
map,  and  followed  for  two  days  and  nights  the  flight  of 
the  birds,  heavenly  pilots  seemingly  sent  to  him  by  Prov 
idence  when  human  science  was  beginning  to  fail.  The 
instinct  of  these  birds,  he  reasoned,  would  not  direct  them 
all  toward  one  point  in  the  horizon  if  they  did  not  see 
land  there.  But  even  the  very  birds  seemed  to  the  sail- 


180  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ors  to  join  with  the  expanse  of  ocean,  and  the  treacherous 
stars,  to  sport  with  their  vessels  and  their  lives.  At  the 
end  of  the  third  day,  the  pilots,  going  up  the  shrouds  when 
the  setting  sun  shows  the  most  distant  horizon,  beheld  him 
sink  into  the  same  waves  from  whence  he  had  risen  in 
vain  for  so  many  mornings.  They  believed  in  the  infinite 
expanse  of  waters.  The  despair  which  depressed  them 
changed  to  fury.  What  terms  had  they  now  to  keep  with 
a  chief  who  had  deceived  the  court  of  Spain,  and  whose 
titles  and  authority,  fraudulently  obtained  from  his  sover 
eigns,  were  about  to  perish  with  him  and  his  expectations  ? 
Would  not  following  him  further  make  them  the  accom 
plices  of  his  guilt  ?  Did  the  duty  of  obedience  extend  be 
yond  the  limits  of  the  world  ?  Was  there  any  other  hope, 
if  even  that  now  remained,  but  to  turn  the  heads  of  their 
ships  to  Europe,  and  to  beat  back  against  the  winds  that 
had  favored  the  admiral,  whom  they  would  chain  to  the 
mast  of  his  own  vessel  as  a  mark  for  their  dying  curses, 
if  they  were  to  die,  or  give  him  up  to  the  vengeance  of 
Spain  if  they  were  ever  permitted  to  see  again  the  ports 
of  their  country? 

These  complaints  had  now  become  clamorous.  The  ad 
miral  restrained  them  by  the  calmness  of  his  countenance. 
He  reminded  the  mutineers  of  the  authority,  sacred  to  a 
subject,  with  which  their  sovereigns  had  invested  him. 
He  called  upon  Heaven  itself  to  decide  between  him  and 
them.  He  flinched  not :  he  offered  his  life  as  the  pledge 
of  his  promises  ;  but  he  asked  them,  with  the  spirit  of  a 
prophet  who  sees  himself  what  the  vulgar  only  see  through 
him,  to  suspend  for  three  days  their  unbelief  and  their  de 
termination  to  put  back.  He  swore  a  rash  but  necessary 
oath,  that  if,  in  the  course  of  the  third  day,  land  was  not 
visible  on  the  horizon,  he  would  yield  to  their  wishes  and 
steer  for  Europe.  The  signs  of  the  neighborhood  of  a  con 
tinent  or  islands  were  so  obvious  to  the  admiral,  that,  in 
begging  these  three  days  from  his  mutinous  crew,  he  felt 
certain  of  being  able  to  attain  his  end.  He  tempted  God 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  \Ql 

by  fixing  a  limit  to  his  revelation  ;  but  he  had  to  manage 
men.  These  men  reluctantly  allowed  him  the  three  days, 
and  God,  who  inspired  him,  did  not  punish  him  for  having 
hoped  much. 

At  sunrise  on  the  second  day,  some  rushes  recently  torn 
up  were  seen  near  the  vessels.  A  plank  evidently  hewn 
by  an  axe  ;  a  stick  skillfully  carved  by  some  cutting  in 
strument  ;  a  bough  of  hawthorn  in  blossom  ;  and,  lastly,  a 
bird's  nest  built  on  a  branch  which  the  wind  had  broken, 
and  full  of  eggs,  on  which  the  parent  bird  was  sitting 
amid  the  gently  rolling  waves,  were  seen  floating  past  on 
the  waters.  The  sailors  brought  on  board  these  living  and 
inanimate  witnesses  of  their  approach  to  land.  They  were 
a  voice  from  the  shore,  confirming  the  assurances  of  Co 
lumbus.  Before  the  land  actually  appeared  in  sight,  its 
neighborhood  was  inferred  from  these  marks  of  life.  The 
mutineers  fell  on  their  knees  to  the  admiral  whom  they 
had  insulted  but  the  day  before,  craved  pardon  for  their 
mistrust,  and  struck  up  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  to  God  for 
associating  them  with  his  triumph. 

Night  fell  on  these  songs  of  the  Church  welcoming  a 
new  world.  The  admiral  gave  orders  that  the  sails  should 
be  close  reefed,  and  the  lead  kept  going ;  and  that  they 
should  sail  slowly,  being  afraid  of  breakers  and  shoals, 
and  feeling  certain  that  the  first  gleam  of  daylight  would 
discover  land  under  their  bows.  On  that  last  anxious 
night  none  slept.  Impatient  expectation  had  removed  all 
heaviness  from  their  eyes ;  the  pilots  and  the  seamen, 
clinging  about  the  masts,  yards,  and  shrouds,  each  tried  to 
keep  the  best  place  and  the  closest  watch  to  get  the  earli 
est  sight  of  the  new  hemisphere.  The  admiral  had  offered 
a  reward  to  the  first  who  should  cry  land,  provided  his  an 
nouncement  was  verified  by  its  actual  discovery.  Provi 
dence,  however,  reserved  to  Columbus  himself  this  first 
glimpse,  which  he  had  purchased  at  the  expense  of  twen 
ty  years  of  his  life,  and  of  untiring  perseverance  amid  such 
dangers.  "While  walking  the  quarter-deck  alone  at  mid- 


182  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

night,  and  sweeping  the  dark  horizon  with  his  keen  eye, 
a  gleam  of  fire  passed  and  disappeared,  and  again  showed 
itself  on  the  level  of  the  waves.  Fearful  of  being  deceived 
by  the  phosphorescence  of  the  sea,  he  quietly  called  a 
Spanish  gentleman  of  Isabella's  court,  named  Guttierez, 
in  whom  he  had  more  confidence  than  in  the  pilots,  point 
ed  out  the  direction  in  which  he  had  seen  the  light,  and 
asked  him  whether  he  could  discern  any  thing  there. 
Guttierez  replied  that  he  did  indeed  see  a  flickering  light 
in  that  quarter.  To  make  still  more  sure,  Columbus  call 
ed  Rodrigo  Sanchez  of  Segovia,  another  in  whom  he  had 
confidence.  Sanchez  had  no  more  hesitation  than  Gut 
tierez  in  pronouncing  that  there  was  a  light  on  the  hori 
zon.  But  the  blaze  was  hardly  seen  before  it  again  dis 
appeared  in  the  ocean,  to  show  itself  anew  the  next  mo 
ment,  whether  it  was  the  light  of  a  fire  on  a  low  shore  al 
ternately  appearing  and  disappearing  beyond  the  broken 
horizon,  or  whether  it  was  the  floating  beacon  of  a  fisher 
man's  boat,  now  rising  on  the  waves  and  now  sinking  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea.  Thus  both  land  and  safety  appear 
ed  together  in  the  shape  of  fire  to  Columbus  and  his  two 
friends,  on  the  night  between  the  llth  and  12th  of  Octo 
ber,  1492.  The  admiral,  enjoining  silence  to  Rodrigo  and 
Guttierez,  kept  his  observation  to  himself,  for  fear  of  again 
raising  false  hopes,  and  giving  a  bitter  disappointment  to 
his  ships'  companies.  He  lost  sight  of  the  light  and  re 
mained  on  deck  until  two  in  the  morning,  praying,  hoping, 
and  despairing  alone,  awaiting  the  triumph  or  the  return 
on  which  the  morrow  was  to  decide. 

He  was  seized  with  that  anguish  which  precedes  the 
great  discoveries  of  truth,  like  the  struggle  which  antici 
pates  the  liberation  of  the  soul  by  death,  when  a  cannon 
shot,  sounding  over  the  sea  a  few  hundred  yards  in  ad 
vance  of  him,  burst  upon  his  ear — the  announcement  of  a 
new-born  world,  which  made  him  tremble  and  fall  upon 
his  knees.  It  was  the  signal  of  land  in  sight,  made  by 
firing  a  shot,  as  had  been  arranged  with  the  Pinta,  which 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  183 

was  sailing  in  advance  of  the  squadron,  to  guide  their 
course  and  take  soundings.  At  this  signal  a  general  shout 
of  "  Land  ho  !"  arose  from  all  the  yards  and  rigging  of  the 
ships.  The  sails  were  furled,  and  daybreak  was  anxiously 
awaited.  The  mystery  of  the  ocean  had  breathed  its  first 
whisper  in  the  bosom  of  night.  Daybreak  would  clear  it 
up  openly  to  every  eye.  Delicious  and  unknown  per 
fumes  reached  the  vessels  from  the  dim  outline  of  the 
shore,  with  the  roar  of  the  waves  upon  the  reefs  and  the 
soft  land  breeze.  The  fire  seen  by  Columbus  indicated 
the  presence  of  man  and  of  the  first  element  of  civiliza 
tion.  Never  did  the  night  appear  so  long  in  clearing  away 
from  the  horizon,  for  thi*  horizon  was  to  Columbus  and 
his  companions  a  second  creation  of  God. 

The  dawn,  as  it  spread  over  the  sky,  gradually  raised 
the  shores  of  an  island  from  the  waves.  Its  distant  ex 
tremities  were  lost  in  the  morning  mist.  It  ascended  grad 
ually,  like  an  amphitheatre,  from  the  low  beach  to  the 
summit  of  the  hills,  whose  dark  green  covering  contrasted 
strongly  with  the  clear  blue  of  the  heavens.  Within  a  few 
paces  of  the  foam  of  the  waves  breaking  on  the  yellow 
sand,  forests  of  tall  and  unknown  trees  stretched  away, 
one  above  another,  over  the  successive  terraces  of  the  isl 
and.  Green  valleys  and  bright  clefts  in  the  hollows  af 
forded  a  half  glimpse  into  these  mysterious  wilds.  Here 
and  there  could  be  discovered  a  few  scattered  huts,  which, 
with  their  outlines  and  roofs  of  dry  leaves,  looked  like  bee 
hives,  and  thin  columns  of  blue  smoke  rose  above  the  tops 
of  the  trees.  Half-naked  groups  of  men,  women,  and  chil 
dren,  more  astonished  than  frightened,  appeared  among 
the  thickets  near  the  shore,  advancing  timidly,  and  then 
drawing  back,  exhibiting,  by  their  gestures  and  demeanor, 
as  much  fear  as  curiosity  and  wonder  at  the  sight  of  these 
strange  vessels  which  the  previous  night  had  brought  to 
their  shores. 

Columbus,  after  gazing  in  silence  on  this  foremost  shore 
of  the  land  so  often  determined  by  his  calculations,  and  so 


184  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

magnificently  colored  by  his  imagination,  found  it  to  ex 
ceed  even  his  own  expectations.  He  burned  with  impa 
tience  to  be  the  first  European  to  set  foot  on  the  sand,  and 
to  plant  the  Cross  and  the  flag  of  Spain — the  standard  of 
the  conquest  of  God  and  of  his  sovereigns  effected  by  his 
genius.  But  he  restrained  the  eagerness  of  himself  and 
his  crew  to  land,  being  desirous  of  giving  to  the  act  of 
taking  possession  of  a  new  world  a  solemnity  worthy  of 
the  greatest  deed,  perhaps,  ever  accomplished  by  a  seaman ; 
and,  in  default  of  men,  to  call  God  and  his  angels,  sea, 
earth,  and  sky,  as  witnesses  of  his  conquest  of  an  unknown 
hemisphere. 

He  put  on  all  the  insignia  of  his  dignities  as  Admiral  of 
the  Ocean  and  viceroy  of  these  future  realms  ;  he  wrapped 
himself  in  his  purple  cloak,  and,  taking  in  his  hand  a  flag 
embroidered  with  a  cross,  in  which  the  initials  of  Ferdi 
nand  and  Isabella  were  interlaced  like  their  two  kingdoms, 
and  surmounted  by  a  crown,  he  entered  his  boat,  and  pull 
ed  toward  the  shore,  followed  by  the  boats  of  Alonzo  and 
Yanes  Pinzon,  his  two  lieutenants.  On  landing,  he  fell  on 
his  knees,  to  acknowledge,  by  this  act  of  humility  and  wor 
ship,  the  goodness  and  greatness  of  God  in  this  new  sphere 
of  his  works.  He  kissed  the  ground,  and,  with  his  face 
on  the  earth,  he  wept  tears  of  a  double  import  and  of  a 
double  meaning,  as  they  fell  on  the  dust  of  this  hemisphere 
now  for  the  first  time  visited  by  Europeans — tears  of  joy 
for  Columbus  ;  the  overflowing  of  a  proud  spirit,  grateful 
and  pious — tears  of  sadness  for  this  virgin  soil,  seeming 
to  foreshadow  the  calamities  and  devastation,  with  fire 
and  sword,  and  blood  and  destruction,  which  the  strangers 
were  to  bring  with  their  pride,  their  knowledge,  and  their 
power.  It  was  the  man  that  shed  these  tears,  but  it  was 
the  earth  that  was  de'stined  to  weep. 

"  Almighty  and  eternal  God,"  said  Columbus,  as  he 
raised  his  forehead  from  the  dust,  with  a  Latin  prayer 
which  his  companions  have  handed  down  to  us,  "  who,  by 
the  energy  of  thy  creative  word,  hast  made  the  firmament, 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  185 

• 

the  earth,  and  sea,  blessed  and  glorified  be  thy  name  in 
all  places !  May  thy  majesty  and  dominion  .be  exalted 
forever  and  ever,  as  Thou  hast  permitted  thy  holy  name 
to  be  made  known  and  spread  by  the  most  humble  of  thy 
servants  in  this  hitherto  unknown  portion  of  thy  empire." 
He  then  baptized  this  land  with  the  name  of  Christ — 
the  island  of  San  Salvador. 

His  lieutenants,  his  pilots,  and  his  seamen,  full  of  glad 
ness,  and  impressed  with  a  superstitious  respect  for  him 
whose  glance  had  pierced  beyond  the  visible  horizon,  and 
whom  they  had  offended  by  their  unbelief— overcome  by 
the  evidence  of  their  eyes,  and  by  that  mental  superiority 
which  overawes  the  minds  of  men,  fell  at  the  feet  of  the 
admiral,  kissed  his  hands  and  his  clothes,  and  recognized 
for  a  moment  the  power  and  the  almost  divine  nature  of 
genius ;  yesterday  the  victims  of  his  obstinacy,  now  the 
companions  of  his  success,  and  sharers  in  the  glory  which 
they  had  mocked.  Such  is  humanity,  persecuting  discov 
erers,  yet  reaping  the  fruits  of  their  inventions. 

During  the  ceremony  of  taking  possession,  the  inhabit 
ants  of  tie  island,  first  kept  at  a  distance  by  fear,  after 
ward  attracted  by  that  instinctive  curiosity  which  forms 
the  first  connection  between  man  and  man,  had  drawn 
near.  They  were  talking  with  each  other  about  the  won 
derful  events  of  the  night  and  morning.  These  vessels, 
working  their  sails,  yards,  and  masts,  like  huge  limbs  open 
ing  and  closing  at  will,  seemed  to  them  animated  and  super 
natural  beings,  descended  during  the  night  from  the  crystal 
firmament  which  surrounded  their  horizon,  inhabitants  of 
heaven  floating  on  their  wings,  and  settling  upon  the  shores 
of  which  they  were  the  tutelar  deities.  Struck  with  re 
spect  at  the  sight  of  the  boats  landing  on  their  island,  and 
of  men  in  brilliant  clothing,  and  covered  with  armor  gleam 
ing  in  the  sun,  they  at  last  came  close,  as  if  fascinated  by 
almighty  power.  They  worshiped  and  adored  them  with 
the  simplicity  of  children,  unsuspicious  of  the  approach  of 
evil  under  a  pleasing  appearance.  The  Spaniards,  on  ex- 


^86  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

amining  them,  were  in  their  turn  astonished  at  not  finding 
in  these  islanders  any  of  the  physical  characteristics,  or 
even  the  color,  of  the  African,  Asiatic,  or  European  races 
with  which  they  usually  came  in  contact.  Their  copper 
complexion,  their  lank  hair  falling  loose  over  their  shoul 
ders,  their  eyes  dark  as  their  sea,  their  delicate  and  almost 
feminine  features,  their  open  and  confiding  countenances, 
and,  lastly,  their  nakedness,  and  the  colored  patterns  with 
which  they  stained  their  skins,  marked  them  as  a  race  com 
pletely  distinct  from  any  of  the  human  families  spread 
over  the  ancient  hemisphere — a  race  still  preserving  the 
simplicity  and  the  gentleness  of  infancy,  lost  for  centuries 
in  this  unknown  portion  of  the  world,  and  retaining,  through 
sheer  ignorance  of  wrong,  the  mildness,  truthfulness,  and 
innocence  of  the  world's  youth. 

Columbus,  satisfied  that  this  island  was  but  an  outpost 
of  India,  toward  which  he  still  thought  he  was  sailing, 
gave  them  the  imaginary  name  of  Indians,  which  they  re 
tained  until  their  extermination,  the  verbal  error  having 
lasted  long  after  the  physical  mistake  was  explained. 

The  Indians,  soon  becoming  accustomed  to  their  stran 
ger-guests,  showed  them  their  springs,  their  houses,  their 
villages,  and  their  canoes,  and  brought  them  as  offerings 
their  eatable  fruit,  their  cassava  bread,  which  replenished 
the  provisions  of  the  Spaniards,  and  some  ornaments  of 
pure  gold,  which  they  wore  in  their  ears  and  nostrils,  or  as 
bracelets,  necklaces,  or  anklets  among  the  women.  They 
were  ignorant  of  commerce  or  of  the  use  of  money,  that 
mercenary  but  indispensable  substitute  for  the  virtue  of 
hospitality,  and  they  were  delighted  to  receive  the  merest 
trifles  from  the  Europeans  in  exchange  for  their  valuables. 
In  their  eyes,  novelty  was  value.  Rare  and  precious  are 
equivalent  words  in  all  countries.  The  Spaniards,  who 
sought  the  country  of  gold  and  precious  stones,  asked  by 
signs  whence  this  metal  came.  The  Indians  pointed  to 
the  south;  the  admiral  and  his  companions  understood 
them  to  mean  that  in  that  direction  there  was  an  island 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  137 

or  continent  of  India,  corresponding  by  its  riches  and  its 
arts  with  the  wonders  related  by  the  Venetian  Marco  Polo. 
The  land  which  they  now  thought  themselves  near  was, 
they  supposed,  the  fabulous  island  of  Zipangu,  or  Japan, 
the  sovereign  of  which  walked  on  a  pavement  of  gold. 
Their  impatience  to  resume  their  course  toward  this  object 
of  their  imagination  or  of  their  covetousness  made  them 
return  quickly  to  their  ships.  They  had  supplied  them 
selves  with  water  from  the  springs  of  the  island,  and  their 
decks  were  loaded  with  fruit,  cassava  cakes,  and  roots, 
which  the  poor  but  happy  Indians  had  given  them.  They 
took  one  of  the  aborigines  with  them  to  learn  their  lan 
guage  and  to  act  as  interpreter. 

On  getting  clear  of  the  island  of  St.  Salvador,  they  found 
themselves,  as  it  were,  lost  in  the  channels  of  an  archipel 
ago  composed  of  more  than  a  hundred  isles  of  various  sizes, 
but  all  with  an  appearance  of  the  most  luxurious  freshness 
and  fertility  of  vegetation.  They  landed  on  the  largest 
and  most  populous.  They  were  surrounded  by  canoes 
hollowed  from  the  trunk  of  a  single  tree  ;  they  traded  with 
the  inhabitants,  exchanging  buttons  and  trinkets.  Their 
navigation  and  their  stoppages  amid  this  labyrinth  of  isl 
ands  were  but  a  repetition  of  the  scene  at  their  landing  at 
San  Salvador.  They  were  every  where  received  with  the 
same  inoffensive  curiosity.  They  were  enchanted  with 
the  climate,  the  flowers,  the  perfumes,  the  colors,  and  the 
plumages  of  unknown  birds,  which  each  of  these  oases  of 
the  ocean  offered  to  their  senses  ;  but  their  minds,  im 
pressed  with  the  sole  idea  of  discovering  the  land  of  gold 
at  what  they  supposed  to  be  the  extremity  of  Asia,  render 
ed  them  less  attentive  to  these  natural  treasures,  and  pre 
vented  their  suspecting  the  existence  of  the  new  and  im 
mense  continent,  of  which  these  isles  were  the  outposts  on 
the  sea.  Guided  by  the  signs  and  looks  of  the  Indians, 
who  pointed  out  to  him  a  region  still  more  splendid  than 
their  own  archipelago,  Columbus  steered  for  the  coast  of 
Cuba,  where  he  landed  after  three  days'  pleasant  sailing, 


188  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

without  losing  sight  of  the  beautiful  Bahamas  which 
enameled  his  path. 

Cuba,  with  its  long  terraces  stretching  away  into  the  far 
distance,  and  backed  by  cloud-piercing  mountains,  with  its 
havens,  estuaries,  gulfs,  bays,  forests,  and  villages,  remind 
ed  him,  on  a  more  majestic  scale,  of  Sicily.  He  was  un 
certain  whether  it  was  a  continent  or  an  island.  He  cast 
anchor  in  the  shady  bosom  of  a  mighty  river,  and,  going 
ashore,  strolled  about  the  shores  and  forests,  the  groves  of 
oranges  and  palm-trees,  and  the  villages  and  dwellings  of 
the  inhabitants.  A  dumb  dog  was  the  only  living  thing 
he  found  in  these  huts,  which  had  been  abandoned  at  his 
approach.  He  re-embarked,  and  ascended  the  river,  shaded 
by  broad-leaved  palms,  and  gigantic  trees  bearing  both 
fruit  and  flowers.  Nature  seemed  to  have  bestowed,  of 
her  own  accord,  and  without  labor,  the  necessities  of  life, 
and  happiness  without  work,  on  these  fortunate  races. 
Every  thing  reminded  them  of  the  Eden  of  Holy  Writ. 
Harmless  animals,  birds  with  azure  and  purple  plumage, 
parrots,  macaws,  and  birds  of  paradise,  shrieked  and  sang, 
or  flew  in  colored  clouds  frarn  branch  to  branch  ;  luminous 
insects  lighted  the  air  by  night ;  the  sun,  softened  by  the 
breeze  of  the  mountain,  the  shade  of  the  trees,  and  the 
coolness  of  the  water,  fertilized  every  thing  without  scorch 
ing  ;  the  moon  and  stars  were  reflected  in  the  river  with 
a  mild  light  which  took  away  the  terror  of  darkness.  A 
general  enthusiasm  had  seized  upon  the  minds  and  senses 
of  Columbus  and  his  companions  ;  they  felt  that  they  had 
reached  a  new  country,  more  fresh  and  yet  more  fruitful 
than  the  old  land  which  they  had  left  behind.  "  It  is  the 
most  beautiful  isle,"  says  Columbus,  in  his  notes,  "  that 
ever  the  eye  of  man  beheld.  One  would  wish  to  live 
there  always.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  misery  or  death 
in  such  a  place." 

The  scent  of  the  spices  which  reached  his  vessels  from 
the  interior,  and  his  meeting  with  pearl  oysters  on  the 
coast,  satisfied  him  more  and  more  that  Cuba  was  a  con- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  189 

tinuation  of  Asia.  He  fancied  that  beyond  the  mountains 
of  this  continent  or  island  (for  he  was  still  uncertain 
whether  Cuba  was  or  was  not  a  portion  of  the  main  land) 
he  should  find  the  empires,  the  civilization,  the  gold  mines, 
and  the  wonders  which  enthusiastic  travelers  had  attrib 
uted  to  Cathay  and  Japan.  Being  unable  to  seize  any 
of  the  natives,  who  all  fled  the  coast  on  the  approach  of 
the  Spaniards,  he  sent  two  of  his  companions,  one  of  whom 
spoke  Hebrew  and  the  other  Arabic,  to  look  for  the  fabu 
lous  cities  in  which  he  supposed  the  sovereign  of  Cathay 
to  dwell.  These  envoys  were  loaded  with  presents  for 
the  inhabitants.  They  had  orders  to  exchange  them  for 
nothing  but  gold,  of  which  they  thought  there  were  inex 
haustible  treasures  in  the  interior. 

The  messengers  returned  to  the  ships  without  having 
discovered  any  other  capital  than  huts  of  savages  and  an 
immense  wilderness  of  vegetation,  perfumes,  fruits,  and 
flowers.  They  had  succeeded,  by  means  of  presents,  in 
encouraging  some  of  the  natives  to  come  back  with  them 

O         O 

to  the  admiral.  Tobacco,  a  plant  of  slightly  intoxicating 
quality,  which  they  made  into  little  rolls,  lighting  them  at 
one  end  to  inhale  the  smoke  at  the  other ;  the  potato,  a 
farinaceous  root,  which  heat  converted  at  once  into  bread ; 
maize,  cotton  spun  by  the  women,  oranges,  lemons,  and 
other  nameless  fruits,  were  the  only  treasures  they  had 
found  about  the  houses  scattered  in  the  glades  of  the 
forest. 

Disappointed  of  his  golden  dreams,  the  admiral,  on 
some  misunderstood  directions  of  the  natives,  unwillingly 
quitted  this  enchanting  country  to  sail  on  to  the  east, 
where  he  still  placed  his  imaginary  Asia.  He  took  on 
board  some  men  and  women  from  Cuba,  bolder  and  more 
confident  than  the  rest,  to  serve  as  interpreters  for  the 
neighboring  countries  which  he  was  going  to  visit,  to  con 
vert  them  to  the  true  faith,  and  to  offer  to  Isabella  these 
souls  which  his  generous  enterprise  had  saved. 

Convinced  that  Cuba,  of  which  he  had  not  ascertained 


190  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

the  limits,  was  a  part  of  the  main  land  of  Asia,  he  sailed 
several  days  at  a  short  distance  from  the  coast  of  the  true 
American  continent  without  seeing  it.  He  was  not  yet 
to  discover  the  truth  so  close  to  his  eyes.  Yet  envy,  which 
was  to  be  the  poison  of  his  life,  had  arisen  in  the  minds 
of  his  companions  on  the  very  day  that  his  discoveries  had 
crowned  the  hopes  of  his  whole  existence.  Amerigo  Ves 
pucci,  an  obscure  Florentine,  embarked  in  one  of  his  ves 
sels,  gave  his  name  to  this  new  world,  to  which  Columbus 
alone  had  been  the  guide.  Vespucci  owed  this  good  for 
tune  entirely  to  chance  arid  to  his  subsequent  voyages 
with  Columbus  in  the  same  latitudes.  A  subaltern  officer, 
devoted  to  the  admiral,  he  had  never  sought  to  rob  him 
of  his  glory.  The  caprice  of  fortune  gave  it  to  him  with 
out  his  having  sought  to  deceive  Europe,  and  custom  has 
retained  it.  The  chief  was  deprived  of  his  due  honor, 
and  the  name  of  the  inferior  prevailed.  Thus  is  human 
glory  set  at  naught ;  but,  though  Columbus  was  the  vic 
tim,  Amerigo  was  not  guilty.  Posterity  must  bear  the 
blame  of  the  injustice  and  ingratitude,  but  a  willful  fraud 
can  not  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  fortunate  pilot  of 
Florence. 

Envy,  which  arises  in  the  heart  of  man  in  the  very  hour 
of  success,  already  began  to  prey  upon  the  mind  of  Co- 
lumbus's  lieutenant,  Alonzo  Pinzon.  He  commanded  the 
Pinta,  the  second  vessel  of  the  squadron,  a  faster  sailer 
than  either  of  the  others.  Pinzon  pretended  to  lose  them 
in  the  night,  and  got  away  from  his  commodore.  He  had 
resolved  to  take  advantage  of  Columbus 's  discovery,  to 
find  out  other  lands  by  himself,  without  genius  and  with 
out  trouble,  and,  after  giving  them  his  name,  to  be  the 
foremost  to  return  to  Europe,  to  reap  the  produce  of  the 
glory,  and  to  gather  the  rewards  due  to  his  master  and 
guide. 

Columbus  had  for  some  days  past  noticed  the  envy  and 
insubordination  of  his  second  in  command.  But  he  owed 
much  to  Alonzo  Pinzon  ;  for,  without  his  encouragement 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  191 

and  assistance  at  Palos,  he  would  never  have  succeeded 
in  equipping  his  vessels  or  in  engaging  seamen.  Grati 
tude  had  prevented  him  from  punishing  the  first  acts  of 
disobedience  of  a  man  to  whom  he  was  so  deeply  indebt 
ed.  The  modest,  magnanimous,  and  forgiving  character 
of  Columbus  made  him  avoid  all  harshness.  Full  of  jus 
tice  and  virtue  himself,  he  expected  to  find  equal  justice 
and  virtue  in  others.  This  goodness,  which  Alonzo  Pin- 
zon  took  for  weakness,  served  as  an  encouragement  to  in 
gratitude.  He  boldly  dashed  between  Columbus  and  the 
new  discoveries  of  which  he  had  resolved  to  deprive  him. 

The  admiral  understood  and  regretted  the  fault,  but 
pretended  to  believe  that  the  Pinta's  separation  was  acci 
dental,  and  steered  with  his  two  vessels  to  the  southeast, 
toward  a  dark  shade  that  he  perceived  over  the  sea,  and 
made  the  island  of  Hispaniola,  since  called  San  Domingo. 
Had  it  not  been  for  this  cloud  on  the  mountains  of  San 
Domingo,  which  induced  him  to  put  about,  he  would  have 
reached  the  main  land.  The  American  archipelago,  by 
enticing  him  to  wander  from  isle  to  isle,  seemed  to  keep 
him,  as  if  purposely,  from  the  goal  which  he  almost  touch 
ed  without  seeing  it.  This  phantasm  of  Asia,  which  had 
led  him  to  the  shores  of  America,  now  stood  between 
America  and  him,  to  deprive  him  of  the  reality  by  the 
substitution  of  a  chimera. 

This  vast  new  country,  pleasant  and  fruitful,  surround 
ed  by  an  atmosphere  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  bathed  by  a 
sea  with  perfume  in  its  waves,  appeared  to  him  to  be  the 
marvelous  island,  detached  from  the  continent  of  India, 
that  he  had  sought  through  such  voyages  and  dangers, 
under  the  fabulous  name  of  Zipangu.  He  named  it  His 
paniola,  to  mark  it  as  his  adopted  country.  The  natives, 
simple,  mild,  hospitable,  open-hearted,  and  respectful, 
crowded  round  them  on  the  shore  as  though  they  were 
beings  of  a  superior  order,  whom  a  celestial  miracle  had 
sent  from  the  verge  of  the  horizon  or  the  bottom  of  the 
ocean  to  be  worshiped  and  adored  as  gods.  A  numerous 


192  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

and  happy  population  then  covered  the  plains  and  valleys 
of  Hispaniola.  The  men  and  women  were  models  of 
strength  and  beauty.  The  perpetual  peace  which  reigned 
among  these  nations  gave  their  countenances  an  expres 
sion  of  gentleness  and  benevolence.  Their  laws  were 
only  the  best  instincts  of  the  heart,  passed  into  traditions 
and  customs.  They  might  have  been  supposed  to  be  a 
young  race,  whose  vices  had  not  yet  had  time  to  develop 
themselves,  and  whom  the  natural  inspirations  of  inno 
cence  sufficed  to  govern.  Of  agriculture,  gardening,  and 
the  other  arts  of  life,  they  knew  enough  for  their  govern 
ment,  their  building,  and  the  first  necessities  of  existence. 
Their  fields  were  admirably  cultivated,  and  their  elegant 
cottages  were  grouped  in  villages  on  the  edges  of  forests 
of  fruit-trees,  in  the  neighborhood  of  rivers  or  springs. 
In  a  genial  climate,  without  either  the  severity  of  winter 
or  the  scorching  heat  of  a  tropical  summer,  their  clothing 
consisted  only  of  personal  ornaments,  or  of  belts  and  aprons 
of  cotton  cloth,  sufficient  to  protect  their  modesty.  Their 
form  of  government  was  as  simple  and  natural  as  their 
ideas.  It  was  but  the  circle  of  the  family,  enlarged  in  the 
course  of  generations,  but  always  grouped  round  an  hered 
itary  chief,  called  the  Cacique.  These  caciques  were  the 
heads,  not  the  tyrants,  of  their  tribes.  Their  customs, 
laws  unwritten,  yet  inviolable  as  divine  ordinances,  gov 
erned  these  petty  princes — an  authority  paternal  on  the 
one  side,  and  filial  on  the  other,  rebellion  against  which 
seemed  out  of  the  question. 

The  Cuban  natives,  whom  Columbus  had  brought  with 
him  to  serve  as  guides  and  interpreters  on  these  seas  and 
islands,  already  began  to  comprehend  Spanish.  They 
partly  understood  the  language  of  the  inhabitants  of  His 
paniola,  a  detached  branch  of  the  same  race.  They  thus 
established  an  easy  and  ready  means  of  communication 
between  Columbus  and  the  people  whom  he  had  just 
reached. 

The  supposed  Indians  fearlessly  conducted  the   Span- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


iards  into  their  houses,  and  presented  them  with  cassava 
bread,  unknown  fruits,  fish,  sweet  roots,  tame  birds  with 
rich  plumage  and  melodious  notes,  flowers,  palms,  bana 
nas,  lemons,  all  the  gifts  of  their  sea,  sky,  earth,  and  cli 
mate.  They  treated  them  as  guests,  as  brothers,  almost 
even  as  gods.  "  Nature,"  says  Columbus,  "  is  there  so 
prolific,  that  property  has  not  produced  the  feeling  of  av 
arice  or  cupidity.  These  people  seem  to  live  in  a  golden 
age,  happy  and  quiet  amid  open  and  endless  gardens,  nei 
ther  surrounded  by  ditches,  divided  by  fences,  nor  protect 
ed  by  walls.  They  behave  honorably  toward  one  anoth 
er,  without  laws,  without  books,  without  judges.  They 
consider  him  wicked  who  takes  delight  in  harming  anoth 
er.  This  aversion  of  the  good  to  the  bad  seems  to  be  all 
their  legislation."  Their  religion  also  was  but  the  senti 
ment  of  their  own  inferiority,  and  of  gratitude  and  love 
for  the  invisible  Being  who  had  granted  them  life  and  hap 
piness. 

What  a  contrast  between  the  state  of  these  happy  races 
when  the  Europeans  first  discovered  them  and  brought 
them  the  spirit  of  the  Old  World,  and  the  condition  into 
which  these  unfortunate  Indians  fell  a  few  years  after  this 
visit  from  those  who  assumed  to  civilize  them  !  What  a 
mystery  of  Providence  was  this  unexpected  arrival  of  Co 
lumbus  in  a  new  world,  to  which  he  thought  he  was  bring 
ing  liberty  and  life,  but  in  which,  without  knowing  it,  he 
was  sowing  tyranny  and  death  ! 

As  Columbus  was  exploring  the  bays  and  havens  of  the 
island,  the  pilot  ran  the  vessel  aground  while  the  admiral 
was  asleep.  The  ship,  threatened  with  instant  destruc 
tion  by  the  heavy  breakers,  was  abandoned  by  the  pilot 
and  part  of  the  crew,  who,  under  pretense  of  taking  an 
anchor  ashore,  pulled  to  the  other  vessel,  thinking  Colum 
bus  doomed  to  inevitable  death.  The  admiral's  energy 
again  saved,  not  the  ship,  but  the  lives  of  his  companions. 
He  faced  the  breakers  as  long  as  a  plank  held,  and  hav 
ing  placed  his  men  on  a  raft,  he  landed  as  a  shipwrecked 
VOL.  I.—  I 


194  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

mariner  on  the  same  shore  that  he  had  just  visited  as  a 
conqueror.  He  was  soon  joined  by  the  only  vessel  he  had 
remaining.  His  shipwreck  and  his  misfortunes  did  not 
cool  the  hospitality  of  the  cacique,  whose  guest  he  had 
been  some  days  previously.  This  cacique,  named  Gua- 
canagari,  the  first  friend  and  afterward  the  first  victim  of 
these  strangers,  shed  tears  of  compassion  over  Columbus's 
disaster.  He  offered  his  house,  his  provisions,  and  assist 
ance  of  every  kind  to  the  Spaniards.  The  riches  of  the 
Europeans,  rescued  from  the  waves  and  spread  out  upon 
the  beach,  were  preserved,  as  if  sacred,  from  all  pillage, 
and  even  from  troublesome  curiosity.  These  men,  who 
knew  no  property  as  between  each  other,  seemed  to  rec 
ognize  and  respect  it  in  their  unfortunate  guests.  Colum 
bus,  in  his  letters  to  the  king  and  queen,  is  loud  in  his 
praise  of  the  easy  generosity  of  this  race.  "  There  is  no 
where  in  the  universe,"  he  exclaims,  "  a  better  nation  or 
a  better  country.  They  love  their  neighbors  as  them 
selves  ;  their  language  is  always  soft  and  gracious,  and 
the  smile  of  kindness  is  ever  on  their  lips.  They  are  na 
ked,  it  is  true,  but  veiled  by  modesty  and  frankness." 

Columbus,  having  established  with  the  young  cacique 
relations  of  the  closest  and  most  confiding  intimacy,  was 
presented  by  him  with  some  gold  ornaments.  At  the 
sight  of  gold,  the  countenance  of  the  Europeans  suddenly 
expressed  such  passionate  avidity  and  fierce  desire,  that 
the  cacique  and  his  subjects  instinctively  took  alarm,  as 
if  their  new  friends  had,  on  the  instant,  changed  their  na 
ture  and  disposition  toward  them.  It  was  but  too  true. 
The  companions  of  Columbus  were  only  coveting  the  fan 
cied  riches  of  the  East,  while  he  himself  was  seeking  the 
mysterious  remnant  of  the  world.  The  sight  of  gold  had 
recalled  their  avarice :  their  faces  had  become  stem  and 
savage  as  their  thoughts.  The  cacique,  being  informed 
that  this  metal  was  the  god  of  the  Europeans,  explained 
to  them,  by  pointing  to  the  mountains  beyond  the  range 
they  saw,  the  situation  of  a  country  from  which  he  re- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  195 

ceived  this  gold  in  abundance.  Columbus  no  longer 
doubted  that  he  had  reached  the  source  of  Solomon's 
wealth,  and,  preparing  every  thing  for  his  speedy  return 
to  Europe,  in  order  to  announce  his  triumph,  he  built  a 
fort  in  the  cacique's  village,  to  afibrd  security  to  a  party 
whom  he  left  behind.  He  selected  from  his  officers  and 
seamen  forty  men,  whom  he  placed  under  the  command 
of  Pedro  de  Arana.  He  instructed  them  to  collect  infor 
mation  about  the  gold  region,  and  to  keep  up  the  respect 
of  the  Indians  for  the  Spaniards.  He  then  set  out  on  his 
return  to  Europe,  loaded  with  the  gifts  of  the  cacique, 
and  bringing  away  all  the  ornaments  and  crowns  of  pure 
gold  that  he  had  been  able  to  procure  during  his  stay 
from  the  natives,  either  by  gift  or  exchange. 

While  coasting  round  the  island,  he  met  his  faithless 
companion,  Alonzo  Pinzon.  Under  pretense  of  having 
lost  sight  of  the  admiral,  Pinzon  had  taken  a  separate 
course.  Concealed  in  a  deep  inlet  of  the  island,  he  had 
landed,  and  instead  of  imitating  the  mildness  and  gentle 
policy  of  Columbus,  had  marked  his  first  steps  with  blood. 
The  admiral,  having  found  his  lieutenant,  appeared  satis 
fied  with  his  excuses,  and  willing  to  attribute  his  deser 
tion  to  the  night.  He  ordered  Pinzon  to  follow  him  to 
Europe  with  his  vessel.  They  set  sail  together,  impatient 
to  announce  to  Spain  the  news  of  their  wonderful  naviga 
tion.  But  the  ocean,  on  which  the  trades  had  wafted 
them  gently  from  wave  to  wave  toward  the  shores  of 
America,  seemed  with  adverse  winds  and  waters  to  drive 
them  resolutely  back  from  the  land  to  which  they  were  so 
anxious  to  return.  Columbus  alone,  through  his  knowl 
edge  of  navigation,  and  his  reckoning,  the  secret  of  which 
he  concealed  from  his  pilots,  knew  the  course  and  the  true 
distances.  His  companions  thought  they  were  still  thou 
sands  of  miles  from  Europe,  while  he  was  already  aware 
of  being  near  the  Azores.  He  soon  perceived  them.  Tre 
mendous  squalls  of  wind — cloud  heaped  on  cloud — and 
lightning  such  as  he  had  never  before  seen  flash  across 


196  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

the  heavens  and  disappear  in  the  sea — huge  and  foaming 
waves  driving  his  vessels  helplessly  about  without  aid 
from  helm  or  sails,  seemed  alternately  to  open  and  close 
the  gates  of  death  to  him  and  his  companions  even  on  the 
very  threshold  of  their  country.  The  signals  which  the 
two  vessels  made  reciprocally  at  night,  disappeared. 
Each,  while  driving  before  the  unceasing  tempest,  between 
the  Azores  and  the  Spanish  coast,  believed  the  other  lost. 
Columbus,  who  did  not  doubt  that  the  Pinta,  with  Pinzon, 
was  buried  beneath  the  waves,  and  whose  own  torn  sails 
and  damaged  rudder  would  no  longer  steer  his  bark, 
expected  every  instant  to  founder  beneath  one  of  these 
mountains  of  water  that  he  labored  up,  to  be  swept  down 
again  from  their  foaming  crests.  He  had  risked  his  life 
freely,  but  he  could  not  bear  to  sacrifice  his  glory.  To 
feel  that  the  discovery  which  he  was  bringing  to  the  Old 
World  was  to  be  buried  for  ages  witlj  him  even  when  so 
near  his  port,  seemed  such  a  cruel  sport  of  Providence, 
that  he  could  not  make  even  his  piety  bend  to  it.  His 
soul  revolted  against  this  slight  of  fortune.  To  die  when 
he  had  but  touched  with  his  foot  the  soil  of  Europe,  and 
after  having  placed  his  secret  and  his  treasure  upon  the 
records  of  his  country,  was  a  destiny  that  he  could  joyful 
ly  accept ;  but  to  allow  a  second  world  to  perish  (so  to 
speak)  with  him,  and  to  carry  to  the  grave  the  solution, 
at  last  found,  of  the  earth's  problem,  which  his  brother 
men  might  perhaps  be  seeking  for  as  many  ages  as  they 
had  already  been  without  it,  was  a  thousand  deaths  in 
one.  In  his  vows  to  all  the  shrines  of  Spain,  he  only 
asked  of  God  that  he  might  carry  to  the  shore,  even  with 
his  wreck,  the  proof  of  his  return  and  of  his  discovery. 
Meanwhile  storm  followed  storm  ;  the  vessel  became  wa 
ter-logged,  and  the  savage  looks,  the  angry  murmurs,  or 
the  sullen  silence  of  his  companions,  reproached  him  for 
the  obstinacy  which  had  driven  or  persuaded  them  to  this 
fatal  cruise.  They  considered  this  continued  wrath  of  the 
elements  as  the  vengeance  of  ocean,  angry  that  the  bold- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  197 

ness  of  man  should  have  penetrated  its  mystery.  They 
talked  of  throwing  him  into  the  sea,  in  order,  by  a  grand 
expiation,  to  still  the  waves. 

Columbus,  heedless  of  their  anger,  but  completely  taken 
up  with  the  fate  of  his  discovery,  wrote  upon  parchment 
several  short  accounts  of  his  voyage,  and  closed  up  some 
in  rolls  of  wax,  and  others  in  cedar  cases,  and  threw  them 
into  the  sea,  in  hopes  that  perchance  after  his  death  they 
might  be  carried  upon  the  shore.  It  has  been  said  that 
one  of  these  cases,  thus  thrown  to  the  winds  and  waves, 
drifted  about  for  three  centuries  and  a  half  upon  or  be 
neath  the  sea,  and  that  not  very  long  since  a  sailor  from 
a  European  vessel,  while  getting  ballast  for  his  ship  on  the 
African  coast,  opposite  Gibraltar,  picked  up  a  petrified  co 
coa-nut,  and  brought  it  to  his  captain  as  a  mere  natural 
curiosity.  The  captain,  on  opening  the  nut  to  see  whether 
the  kernel  had  resisted  the  action  of  time,  found  that  the 
hollow  shell  concealed  a  parchment,  which  contained,  in 
a  Gothic  character,  these  words :  "  We  can  not  survive  the 
storm  one  day  longer.  We  are  between  Spain  and  the 
newly-discovered  Eastern  Isles.  If  the  caravel  founders, 
may  some  one  pick  up  this  testimony!  —  CHRISTOPHER 
COLUMBUS." 

The  ocean  kept  this  message  for  358  years,  and  did  not 
give  it  to  Europe  until  America — colonized,  nourishing, 
and  free  —  already  rivaled  the  old  continent:  a  freak  of 
fortune,  to  teach  men  what  might  have  remained  conceal 
ed  so  long,  if  Providence  had  not  forbidden  the  waves  to 
drown,  in  Columbus,  its  great  announcer ! 

The  next  day  "Land  ho  !"  was  cried.  It  was  the  Por 
tuguese  isle  of  St.  Mary,  the  last  of  the  Azores.  Colum 
bus  and  his  companions  were  driven  from  it  by  the  jeal 
ous  persecution  of  the  Portuguese.  Again  given  up  to  the 
sufferings  of  hunger  and  tempest  for  many  long  days,  it 
was  not  until  the  4th  of  March  that  they  entered  the  Ta- 
gus,  where  they  at  length  anchored  off  a  European  shore, 
though  of  a  rival  kingdom.  Columbus,  on  being  present- 


198  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ed  to  the  King  of  Portugal,  related  his  discoveries,  with 
out  explaining  his  course,  lest  this  prince  might  anticipate 
the  fleets  of  Isabella.  The  nobles  of  the  court  of  John  the 
Second  of  Portugal  advised  this  prince  to  have  the  great 
navigator  assassinated,  in  order  to  bury  with  him  his  se 
cret,  as  well  as  the  rights  of  the  Spanish  crown  over  these 
new  lands.  John  was  indignant  at  this  cowardly  advice. 
Columbus  was  treated  with  honor,  and  permitted  to  send 
a  courier  to  his  sovereigns,  to  announce  his  success,  and 
his  approaching  return  by  sea  to  Palos. 

He  landed  there  on  the  15th  of  March,  1493,  at  sunrise, 
in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  frantic  with  joy  and  pride,  which 
even  rushed  into  the  water  to  carry  him  triumphantly 
ashore.  He  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  his  friend  and 
protector,  the  poor  prior  of  the  convent  of  La  Rabida,  Juan 
Perez,  who  alone  had  believed  in  him,  and  whom  a  new 
hemisphere  rewarded  for  his  faith.  Columbus  walked 
barefoot  at  the  head  of  a  procession  to  the  church  of  the 
monastery  to  return  thanks  for  his  safety,  for  his  glory,  and 
for  the  acquisition  to  Spain.  The  whole  population  fol 
lowed  him  with  blessings  to  the  door  of  this  humble  con 
vent,  at  which  he  had  some  years  before,  alone  with  his 
child,  and  on  foot,  craved  hospitality  as  a  beggar.  Never 
has  any  among  men  brought  to  his  country  or  posterity 
such  a  conquest  since  the  creation  of  the  globe,  except 
those  who  have  given  to  earth  the  revelation  of  a  new 
idea ;  and  this  conquest  of  Columbus  had  until  then  cost 
humanity  neither  a  crime,  a  single  life,  a  drop  of  blood,  nor 
a  tear.  The  most  delightful  days  of  his  existence  were 
those  which  he  passed  while  resting  from  his  hopes  and 
his  gloiy  in  the  monastery  of  La  Rabida,  in  the  arms  of 
his  children,  and  in  the  company  of  his  friend  and  host, 
the  prior  of  the  convent. 

And  as  if  Heaven  had  thought  fit  to  crown  his  happi 
ness  and  to  avenge  him  on  the  envy  which  was  pursuing 
him,  Alonzo  Pinzon,  the  commander  of  his  second  vessel, 
brought  the  Pinta  next  day  into  the  harbor  of  Palos,  where 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  199 

he  hoped  to  arrive  before  his  commander,  and  to  rob  him 
of  the  first-fruits  of  his  triumph.  But  foiled  in.  his  evil 
design,  and  fearing  lest  the  admiral  might  report  and  pun 
ish  his  desertion,  Pinzon  died  of  vexation  and  disappoint 
ment  on  seeing  the  vessel  of  Columbus  at  anchor  in  the 
port.  Columbus  was  too  generous  to  rejoice,  much  more 
to  have  punished  him ;  and  the  malice  that  pursues  the 
steps  of  the  great  seemed  to  expire  at  his  feet. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  having  been  informed  of  the 
return  and  discoveries  of  their  admiral  by  the  messenger 
whom  he  had  dispatched  from  Lisbon,  awaited  him  at  Bar 
celona  with  honor  and  munificence  worthy  the  greatness 
of  his  services.  The  Spanish  nobility  came  from  all  the 
provinces  to  meet  him.  He  made  a  triumphal  entry  as  a 
prince  of  future  kingdoms.  The  Indians  brought  over  by 
the  squadron,  as  a  living  proof  of  the  existence  of  new 
races  of  men  in  these  newly-discovered  lands,  marched  at 
the  head  of  the  procession,  their  bodies  painted  with  di 
vers  colors,  and  adorned  with  gold  necklaces  and  pearls. 
The  animals  and  birds,  the  unknown  plants,  and  the  pre 
cious  stones  collected  on  those  shores,  were  exhibited  in 
golden  basins,  carried  on  the  heads  of  Moorish  or  negro 
slaves.  The  eager  crowd  pressed  close  upon  them,  and 
wondrous  tales  were  circulated  around  the  officers  and 
companions  of  Columbus.  The  admiral  himself,  mounted 
on  a  richly  caparisoned  charger  presented  by  the  king,  next 
appeared,  accompanied  by  a  numerous  cavalcade  of  cour 
tiers  and  gentlemen.  All  eyes  were  directed  toward  the 
man  inspired  of  Heaven,  who  first  had  dared  to  lift  the 
veil  of  Ocean.  People  sought  in  his  face  for  a  visible 
sign  of  his  mission,  and  thought  they  could  discern  one. 
The  beauty  of  his  features,  the  thoughtful  majesty  of  his 
countenance,  the  vigor  of  eternal  youth  joined  to  the  dig 
nity  of  riper  age,  the  combination  of  thought  with  action, 
of  strength  with  experience,  a  thorough  appreciation  of  his 
worth,  combined  with  piety  toward  God,  who  had  chosen 
him  from  among  others,  and  with  gratitude  toward  his 


200  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

sovereigns,  who  awarded  him  the  honor  which  he  brought 
them  as  a  conqueror,  made  Columbus  then  appear  (as  those 
relate  who  saw  him  enter  Barcelona)  like  a  prophet,  or  a 
hero  of  Holy  Writ  or  Grecian  story. 

"None  could  compare  with  him,"  they  say;  "all  felt 
him  to  be  the  greatest  or  the  most  fortunate  of  men." 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella  received  him  on  their  throne, 
shaded  from  the  sun  by  a  golden  canopy.  They  rose  up 
before  him  as  though  he  had  been  an  inspired  messenger. 
They  then  made  him  sit  on  a  level  with  themselves,  and 
listened  to  the  solemn  and  circumstantial  account  of  his 
voyages.  At  the  end  of  his  recital,  which  habitual  elo 
quence  had  colored  with  his  exuberant  imagination,  and 
impregnated  with  fervid  enthusiasm,  the  king  and  queen, 
moved  even  to  tears,  fell  on  their  knees  and  repeated  the 
Te  Deum,  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  for  the  greatest  con 
quest  that  the  Almighty  had  ever  yet  vouchsafed  to  sov 
ereigns. 

Couriers  were  instantly  dispatched  to  carry  the  won 
drous  news  and  fame  of  Columbus  to  all  the  courts  of 
Europe.  The  obscurity  with  which  he  had  until  then 
been  surrounded  changed  to  a  brilliant  renown,  filling  the 
earth  with  his  name.  The  discovery  of  the  poor  geogra 
pher  of  Cordova  became  the  subject  of  conversation  for 
the  world.  Columbus  neither  suffered  his  mind  to  be 
elated  by  the  honor  decreed  to  his  name,  nor  his  pride  to 
be  humiliated  by  the  jealousy  which  began  to  arise  of  his 
glory. 

One  day,  when  he  was  dining  at  the  table  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  one  of  the  guests,  envious  of  the  honor  paid 
to  the  wool-comber's  son,  asked  him  sneeringly  whether 
he  thought  no  one  else  would  have  discovered  the  new 
hemisphere  if  he  had  not  been  born.  Columbus  did  not 
answer  the  question,  for  fear  of  saying  too  much  or  too 
little  of  himself ;  but  he  took  an  egg  between  his  fingers, 
and,  addressing  the  whole  company  present,  asked  them 
if  they  could  make  it  stand  upright.  None  could  manage 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  £01 

this.  Columbus  then  crushed  the  egg  at  one  end,  and, 
placing  it  erect  on  the  broken  extremity,  showed  his  de 
tractors  that,  if  there  were  no  merit  in  a  simple  idea,  yet 
none  could  find  it  out  before  some  inventor  showed  others 
the  example  ;  thus  rendering  to  God  the  honor  of  the  dis 
covery,  but  taking  to  himself  the  credit  of  being  the  first 
by  whom  it  was  made.  This  apologue  has  since  become 
the  answer  of  every  man  whom  Providence  has  selected 
to  point  out  a  way  for  his  fellows,  and  to  tread  it  before 
them,  without,  however,  being  greater,  but  only  more  in 
spired  than  his  brethren. 

Honors,  titles,  and  territorial  rights  over  the  lands  of 
which  he  should  hereafter  complete  the  discovery  and 
conquest,  became,  by  formal  treaty  with  the  court,  the  re 
ward  of  Columbus.  He  obtained  the  viceroyalty  and  the 
government,  with  one  fourth  of  the  riches  and  produce 
of  the  seas,  the  islands,  and  the  continents  on  which  he 
should  plant  the  cross  of  the  Church  and  the  flag  of  Spain. 
The  Archdeacon  of  Seville,  Fonseca,  received  the  title  of 
Patriarch  of  the  Indies,  and  was  charged  with  the  prepa 
rations  and  armaments  of  the  new  expedition  which  Co 
lumbus  was  preparing  to  guide  to  new  conquests.  But, 
from  that  day,  Fonseca  became  the  secret  rival  of  the 
great  navigator  ;  and,  as  if  he  had  been  desirous  of  crush 
ing  the  ginius  which  it  was  his  duty  to  second,  while  ap 
pearing  to  procure  aid  for  Columbus,  was  really  raising 
obstacles.  His  delays  and  false  pretenses  reduced  to  sev 
enteen  sail  the  fleet  which  was  to  escort  the  admiral 
back  across  the  Atlantic. 

The  adventurous  disposition  of  the  Spaniards  of  that 
day,  the  ardor  of  religious  proselytism,  and  the  spirit  of 
chivalry,  collected  in  these  vessels  a  great  number  of 
priests,  gentlemen,  and  adventurers ;  some  anxious  to 
spread  the  faith,  others  desirous  of  winning  renown  and 
fortune  by  being  the  first  to  settle  in  these  new  countries 
in  which  their  imagination  reveled.  Workmen  of  all 
trades,  laborers  from  all  climates,  domestic  animals  of  all 

T2 


202  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

races,  seeds,  plants,  vine-shoots,  slips  of  fruit-trees,  sugar- 
canes,  and  specimens  of  all  the  arts  and  trades  of  Europe, 
were  embarked  on  these  ships,  to  try  the  climate  and  soil, 
to  tempt  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  realms,  and  to  rob 
them  of  the  gold,  pearls,  perfumes,  and  spices  of  India,  in 
return  for  worthless  trifles  from  Europe.  It  was  the  cru 
sade  of  religion,  war,  industry,  and  avidity — for  some, 
heaven  ;  for  others,  earth ;  for  all,  the  unknown  and  the 
marvelous. 

The  most  illustrious  of  the  companions  who  embarked 
with  Columbus  was  Alonzo  de  Ojeda,  formerly  a  page  of 
Q/ueen  Isabella,  and  the  handsomest,  bravest,  and  most 
adventurous  cavalier  of  her  court.  His  mind  and  body 
were  so  overflowing  with  courage,  that  he  carried  his 
hardihood  to  the  verge  of  madness.  One  day,  when  Isa 
bella  had  ascended  the  lofty  tower  called  the  Giralda  of 
Seville  to  enjoy  its  wonderful  height,  and  look  down  from 
its  summit  on  the  streets  and  houses  of  the  town,  appear 
ing  like  an  open  ant-heap  at  her  feet,  he  sprung  on  to  a 
narrow  beam  which  projected  over  the  cornice,  and,  bal 
ancing  himself  on  one  foot  at  the  end  of  it,  executed  the 
most  extraordinary  feats  of  boldness  and  activity  to  amuse 
his  sovereign,  without  being  in  the  least  alarmed  or  dizzy 
at  the  fear  of  imminent  death. 

On  the  25th  of  September,  1493,  the  fleet  left  the  Bay 
of  Cadiz.  Shouts  of  joy  from  the  shore  accompanied  this 
second  departure,  which  seemed  destined  to  a  continued 
triumph.  The  two  sons  of  Columbus  accompanied  their 
father  onboard  his  flag-ship.  He  gave  them  his  blessing 
and  left  them  in  Spain,  that  at  least  the  better  half  of  his 
existence  might  remain  sheltered  from  the  perils  he  was 
going  to  encounter.  His  squadron  consisted  of  three  large 
ships  and  fourteen  caravellas.  The  fleet  discovered  on 
the  2d  of  November  the  island  of  Guadaloupe,  and  cruised 
among  the  Caribbee  islands,  to  which  he  gave  names  de 
rived  from  his  pious  recollections ;  and  soon  afterward 
making  the  point  of  Hispardola  now  called  Hayti,  Colum- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  203 

bus  set  sail  for  the  gulf  where  he  had  built  the  fort  in 
which  he  had  left  his  forty  companions.  Night  conceal 
ed  the  shore  from  his  view,  when,  full  both  of  hope  and 
of  anxiety,  he  cast  anchor  in  the  roadstead.  He  did  not 
wait  for  dawn  to  announce  his  arrival  to  the  colony.  A 
salute  from  his  guns  boomed  over  the  waves  to  acquaint 
the  Spaniards  with  his  return  ;  but  the  cannon  of  the  fort 
remained  silent,  and  this  salute  to  the  New  "World  was 
only  answered  by  the  echo  from  the  lonely  cliffs.  Next 
morning,  with  daybreak,  he  discovered  the  beach  desert 
ed,  the  fort  destroyed,  the  guns  half  buried  under  its 
ruins,  the  bones  of  the  Spaniards  bleaching  on  the  shore, 
and  the  village  of  the  caciques  abandoned  by  its  inhab 
itants.  The  few  natives  who  appeared  in  the  distance,  at 
the  edge  of  the  forest,  seemed  afraid  to  come  near,  as  if 
they  were  withheld  by  a  feeling  of  remorse  or  by  the 
dread  of  revenge.  The  cacique,  more  confident  in  his 
innocence  and  in  the  justice  of  Columbus,  whom  he  had 
learned  to  esteem,  at  length  advanced,  and  related  the 
crimes  of  the  Spaniards,  who  had  abused  the  hospitality 
of  his  subjects  by  oppressing  the  natives,  carrying  off 
their  wives  and  daughters,  reducing  their  hosts  to  slave 
ry,  and,  at  length,  rousing  the  hatred  of  the  tribe.  After 
having  slaughtered  a  great  number  of  Indians  and  burn 
ed  their  huts,  they  had  themselves  been  killed.  The 
ruined  fort  covering  their  bones  was  the  first  monument 
of  the  contact  of  these  two  human  races,  one  of  which 
was  bringing  slavery  and  destruction  on  the  other.  Co 
lumbus  wept  over  the  crimes  of  his  companions  and  the 
misfortunes  of  the  cacique.  He  resolved  to  seek  another 
place  to  disembark  and  colonize  the  island. 

The  most  beautiful  among  the  young  Indian  girls  cap 
tured  from  the  neighboring  isles,  and  kept  prisoners  in 
the  ships,  named  Catalina,  had  attracted  the  attention  of 
a  cacique  who  visited  Columbus  on  board  his  ship.  A 
plan  of  escape  was  arranged  between  the  cacique  and  the 
object  of  his  love  by  signs  which  the  Europeans  did  not 


204  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

understand.  The  night  that  Columbus  set  sail,  Catalina 
and  her  companions,  foiling  the  watchfulness  of  their 
guards,  sprang  into  the  water.  They  swam,  pursued  in 
vain  by  the  boats  of  the  Europeans,  toward  the  shore, 
where  the  young  cacique  had  lighted  a  fire  to  guide  them. 
The  lovers,  united  by  this  feat  of  skill  and  strength,  took 
shelter  in  the  forests,  and  concealed  themselves  from  the 
vengeance  of  the  Europeans. 

Columbus  landed  again  on  virgin  soil  at  some  distance 
further  on,  and  founded  the  town  of  Isabella.  He  estab 
lished  friendly  relations  with  the  nfltives,  built,  cultivated, 
and  governed  the  first  European  colony,  the  nucleus  of  so 
many  others,  and  sent  around  detachments  to  scour  the 
plains  and  mountains  of  Hispaniola.  He  first  enticed, 
then  attracted,  and  finally  subjected,  by  mild  and  equita 
ble  laws,  the  various  tribes  of  this  vast  island.  He  built 
forts,  and  marked  out  roads  toward  the  different  parts  of 
the  empire.  He  searched  for  gold,  which  he  discovered 
to  be  less  abundant  than  he  expected  in  these  regions, 
which  he  still  took  for  India  ;  but  he  only  found  the  inex 
haustible  fertility  of  a  rich  land,  and  a  people  as  easy  to 
govern  as  to  subdue.  He  sent  back  the  greater  part  of 
his  vessels  to  Spain,  to  ask  his  sovereign  for  fresh  supplies 
of  men,  animals,  tools,  plants,  and  seeds,  required  by  the 
immensity  of  the  countries  which  he  was  going  to  win 
over  to  the  customs,  religion,  and  arts  of  Europe.  But  the 
disaffected,  the  jealous,  and  the  envious  were  the  first  to 
rush  on  board  his  fleet,  to  raise  murmurs,  accusations,  and 
calumnies  against  him.  He  himself  remained  behind, 
afflicted  with  the  gout,  suffering  excruciating  pain ;  con 
demned  to  inactivity  of  body  and  unceasing  mental  anxi 
ety,  and  harassed,  in  his  rising  colony,  by  the  rivalries,  the 
seditions,  the  plots,  the  disgraceful  insubordination,  and 
the  famine  of  his  companions. 

Always  indulgent  and  noble-minded,  Columbus  tri 
umphed,  through  sheer  force  of  character,  over  the  turbu 
lence  of  his  countrymen  and  the  disobedience  of  his  lieu- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  205 

tenants,  and  was  satisfied  with  confining  the  mutineers 
on  board  the  vessels.  On  recovering  from  his  long  illness, 
he  traversed  the  island  with  a  picked  body  of  men,  seek 
ing  in  vain  for  the  gold  mines  of  Solomon,  but  studying 
the  natural  history  and  peculiarities  of  the  soil,  and 
spreading,  throughout  his  journey,  respect  and  affection 
for  his  name. 

He  found,  on  his  return  to  the  colony,  the  same  disor 
der,  mutiny,  and  vice.  The  Spaniards  made  a  bad  use  of 
the  superstition  and  fear  with  which  they  and  their  horses 
inspired  the  natives.  The  Indians  took  them  for  mon 
strous  beings — horse  and  rider  forming  but  one  creature 
— striking  down,  crushing,  and  blasting  with  fire  the  ene 
mies  of  the  Europeans.  By  the  influence  of  this  dread, 
they  subdued,  enslaved,  violated,  abused,  and  tortured  this 
gentle  and  obedient  race.  Columbus  again  interfered  to 
punish  the  tyranny  of  his  companions.  He  desired  to 
bring  the  Indian  tribes  the  religion  and  arts  of  Europe, 
not  its  yoke,  its  vices,  and  its  sins.  After  re-establishing 
gome  sort  of  order,  he  embarked  to  visit  the  scarcely-dis 
covered  island  of  Cuba.  He  reached  it,  and  sailed  for  a 
long  time  past  its  shores,  without  discovering  the  extrem 
ity  of  the  land,  which  he  took  for  a  continent.  He  sailed 
from  thence  toward  Jamaica,  another  island  of  immense 
extent,  whose  mountain  peaks  he  saw  among  the  clouds. 
Then,  crossing  an.  archipelago,  which  he  called  the  Garden 
of  the  Queen,  from  the  richness  and  sweet  perfume  of  the 
vegetation  on  its  isles,  he  returned  to  Cuba,  and  succeed 
ed  in  establishing  relations  with  the  natives.  The  In 
dians  looked  on  with  respect  at  the  ceremonies  of  Chris 
tian  worship  which  the  Spaniards  celebrated  in  a  recess 
among  the  palm-trees  by  the  shore.  One  of  their  old 
men  came  up  to  Columbus  after  the  ceremony,  and  said, 
in  a  solemn  tone,  "  What  thou  hast  done  is  well,  for  it  ap 
pears  to  be  thy  worship  of  the  universal  God.  They  say 
that  thou  comest  to  these  lands  with  great  might  and  pow 
er  beyond  all  resistance.  If  that  be  so,  hear  from  me 


206  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

what  our  ancestors  have  told  our  fathers,  who  have  re 
peated  it  to  ourselves.  "When  the  souls  of  men  are  sep 
arated  by  the  divine  will  from  their  bodies,  they  go,  some 
to  a  country  without  sun  and  without  trees,  others  to  a 
region  of  beauty  and  delight,  according  as  they  have  acted 
ill  or  well  here  below,  by  doing  evil  or  good  to  their  fel 
lows.  If,  therefore,  thou  art  to  die  like  us,  have  a  care  to 
do  no  wrong  to  those  who  have  never  injured  thee." 

This  discourse  of  the  old  Indian,  related  by  Las  Casas, 
showed  that  they  had  a  religion  rivaling  Christianity  in 
the  simplicity  of  its  precepts  and  purity  of  its  morality — 
either  a  mysterious  emanation  or  primitive  nature  untar 
nished  by  depravity  and  vice,  or  the  tradition  of  an  an 
cient  civilization  long  since  worn  out  and  exhausted. 

After  a  long  and  fatiguing  voyage  of  discovery,  Colum 
bus  returned  in  a  dying  state  to  Hispaniola.  His  fatigue 
and  anxiety,  added  to  suffering  and  to  the  approach  of  age, 
unfelt  by  his  mind,  but  weighing  upon  his  body,  for  a  time 
triumphed  over  his  genius.  His  sailors  brought  him  back 
to  Isabella  insensible  and  exhausted.  But  Providence, 
which  had  never  abandoned  him,  watched  over  him  du 
ring  the  abeyance  of  his  faculties.  On  recovering  from 
his  long  unconsciousness,  he  found  his  beloved  brother 
Bartholomew  Columbus  sitting  by  his  bedside.  He  had 
come  from  Europe  to  Hispaniola,  as  though  he  had  felt  a 
presentiment  of  his  brother's  danger  and  need.  Barthol 
omew  was  endowed  with  the  strength  of  the  family,  as 
Diego  had  the  gentleness  and  Christopher  the  genius. 
The  vigor  of  his  body  equaled  the  energy  of  his  mind. 
Of  athletic  frame  and  iron  nerve,  with  robust  health,  a 
commanding  aspect,  and  a  powerful  voice,  that  could  be 
heard  above  wind  and  waves  ;  a  sailor  from  his  youth,  a 
soldier  and  adventurer  all  his  life  ;  gifted  by  nature  and 
by  habit  with  the  boldness  that  secures  obedience,  and  the 
integrity  which  ensures  submission ;  as  fit  for  command 
as  for  contest — he  was  the  very  man  whom  Columbus 
most  wanted  in  the  dangerous  extremity  to  which  anar- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  207 

chy  had  reduced  his  kingdom  ;  and  more  than  all  this,  he 
was  a  brother  imbued  with  as  much  respect  as  attach 
ment  for  the  head  and  honor  of  his  house.  His  near  re 
lationship  made  Columbus  certain  of  the  fidelity  of  his 
lieutenant.  The  attachment  of  the  brothers  to  each  oth 
er  was  the  best  pledge  of  confidence  on  one  side,  and  sub 
mission  on  the  other.  Columbus,  during  the  long  months 
throughout  which  exhausted  nature  compelled  himself  to 
inaction  and  rest,  gave  up  the  government  and  authority 
to  him,  under  the  title  of  Adelantado,  or  superintendent 
and  vice-governor  of  the  lands  under  his  rule.  Barthol 
omew,  a  severer  administrator  than  Christopher,  com 
manded  more  respect,  but  raised  more  opposition  than  his 
brother. 

The  rashness  and  treachery  of  the  young  Spanish  war 
rior,  Ojeda,  raised  a  war  of  despair  between  the  Indians 
and  the  colony.  That  intrepid  adventurer,  having  ad 
vanced  with  some  horsemen  into  the  most  distant  and 
independent  portions  of  the  island,  persuaded  one  of  the 
caciques  to  return  with  him  to  Isabella,  with  a  great  num 
ber  of  Indians,  to  see  the  grandeur  and  wealth  of  the  Eu 
ropeans.  The  cacique  was  induced  to  follow  him.  After 
some  days'  march,  when  they  halted  on  the  bank  of  a 
river,  Ojeda,  practicing  on  the  simplicity  of  the  Indian 
chief,  showed  him  a  pair  of  handcuffs  of  polished  steel, 
whose  brilliancy  dazzled  him.  Ojeda  told  him  that  these 
irons  were  bracelets,  which  the  kings  of  Europe  wore  on 
grand  days  when  they  met  their  subjects.  His  host  was 
induced  to  ask  to  wear  them,  and  to  ride  on  horseback 
like  a  Spaniard,  that  his  subjects  might  see  him  in  this 
pretended  dress  of  the  sovereigns  of  the  Old  World.  The 
cacique  had  scarcely  put  on  the  handcuffs  and  mounted 
behind  the  cunning  Ojeda,  when  the  Spanish  horsemen 
galloped  off  with  their  prisoner,  crossed  the  island,  and 
brought  him  in  chains  to  the  colony,  where  they  kept  him 
in  the  irons  which  his  childish  vanity  had  induced  him  to 
put  on. 


208  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

A  vast  insurrection  roused  the  Indians  against  this  per 
fidy  of  strangers  whom  they  had  at  first  considered  as 
guests,  friends,  benefactors,  and  gods.  This  insurrection 
brought  down  upon  them  the  vengeance  of  the  Spaniards. 
They  reduced  the  Indians  to  a  state  of  slavery,  and  sent 
four  vessels  to  Spain  loaded  with  these  victims  of  their 
avarice,  to  make  an  infamous  traffic  in  human  cattle  ; 
thus  making  up,  by  the  price  of  slaves,  for  the  gold  which 
they  expected  to  pick  up  like  dust  in  countries  where  they 
found  nothing  but  blood,  the  war  degenerated  into  a  man 
hunt.  Dogs  brought  from  Europe,  and  trained  to  this 
chase  in  the  forests,  tracking  down,  throttling,  and  wor 
rying  the  natives,  assisted  the  Spaniards  in  this  inhuman 
devastation  of  the  country. 

Columbus,  at  length  recovered  from  his  long  illness,  on 
reassuming  the  reins  of  government  was  himself  drawn 
into  the  wars  which  had  broken  out  during  his  illness. 
He  became  a  warrior  and  then  a  peace-maker  after  his 
sailor's  life.  He  gained  some  decisive  battles  over  the 
Indians,  obliged  them  to  submit  to  the  yoke  which  gen 
tleness  and  policy  made  easy,  and  merely  subjected  them 
to  a  small  tribute  of  gold  and  the  fruits  of  their  country, 
rather  as  a  token  of  alliance  than  of  slavery.  The  island 
again  flourished  under  his  moderation ;  but  the  unhappy 
and  confiding  cacique,  Guacanagari,  who  had  been  the 
first  to  receive  the  strangers,  ashamed  and  vexed  even  to 
despair  at  having  been  the  involuntary  accomplice  of  his 
country's  ruin,  fled  into  the  inaccessible  mountains  of  the 
interior,  and  died  there  a  freeman,  rather  than  live  a  slave 
under  the  laws  of  those  who  had  taken  a  shameful  advan 
tage  of  his  kindness. 

During  the  sickness  of  Columbus  and  the  troubles  in 
the  island,  his  enemies  at  court  had  injured  him  in  the 
favor  of  Ferdinand.  Isabella,  more  firm  in  her  admiration 
of  this  great  man,  tried  in  vain  to  interpose  her  protection. 
The  court  sent  to  Hispaniola  a  magistrate  invested  with 
secret  powers,  authorizing  him  to  take  informations  con- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  ^09 

corning  alleged  crimes  of  the  viceroy,  and  to  dispossess 
him  of  his  authority  and  send  him  back  to  Europe  if  the 
accusations  were  confirmed.  This  partial  judge,  named 
Aguado,  arrived  at  Hispaniola  while  the  viceroy  was  at 
the  head  of  the  troops  in  the  interior  of  the  island,  em 
ployed  in  pacifying  and  managing  the  country.  Forget 
ting  the  gratitude  which  he  owed  Columbus  as  the  first 
cause  of  his  wealth,  Aguado,  even  before  collecting  infor 
mation,  declared  Columbus  guilty,  and  provisionally  de 
prived  him  of  his  sovereign  authority.  Surrounded  and 
applauded  on  landing  by  the  malcontents  of  the  colony, 
he  ordered  Columbus  to  come  to  Isabella,  the  Spanish 
capital,  and  to  acknowledge  his  authority.  Columbus, 
surrounded  by  his  friends  and  his  devoted  soldiery,  might 
easily  have  refused  obedience  to  the  insolent  commands 
of  a  subordinate.  He,  however,  bowed  before  the  mere 
name  of  his  sovereign,  went  unarmed  to  Aguado,  and 
giving^  up  all  his  authority,  allowed  him  to  carry  on  the 
infamous  trial  to  which  his  calumniators  had  subjected 
him. 

But  at  the  very  moment  when  his  fortune  was  thus 
waning  before  persecution,  it  bestowed  on  him  the  favor 
of  all  others  the  most  sure  to  reconcile  him  with  the  court. 
One  of  his  young  officers,  named  Miguel  Diaz,  having 
killed  one  of  his  companions  in  a  duel,  fled  away,  for  fear 
of  chastisement,  into  one  of  the  back  parts  of  the  island. 
The  tribe  that  inhabited  that  district  was  governed  by  the 
widow  of  a  cacique,  a  young  Indian  of  great  beauty.  She 
became  deeply  enamored  of  the  Spanish  fugitive,  and 
married  him.  But  Diaz,  though  loved  and  presented  with 
a  crown  by  the  object  of  his  affection,  could  not  forget  his 
country,  or  conceal  the  sadness  which  his  exile  threw  over 
him.  His  wife,  questioning  him  as  to  the  cause  of  his 
melancholy,  was  informed  that  gold  was  the  passion  of 
the  Spaniards,  and  that  they  would  come  and  live  with 
him  in  that  country  if  they  could  hope  to  find  the  precious 
metal.  The  young  Indian,  overjoyed  at  having  the  means 


210  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

of  retaining  the  man  she  loved,  acquainted  him  with  the 
existence  of  inexhaustible  mines  hidden  among  the  mount 
ains.  Having  learned  this  secret,  and  being  certain  that 
it  would  procure  his  pardon,  Diaz  hastened  to  inform  Co 
lumbus  of  the  discovery  of  this  treasure.  The  brother  of 
the  viceroy,  Bartholomew,  went  off  with  Diaz  and  an  arm 
ed  escort  to  verify  the  discovery.  In  a  few  days  they 
reached  a  valley  in  which  a  stream  rolled  down  gold  dust 
among  its  sand,  and  where  the  rocks  in  the  bed  of  the 
river  were  covered  with  shining  particles  of  the  metal. 
Columbus  established  a  fort  in  the  neighborhood,  worked 
and  enlarged  mines  opened  long  before,  and  collected  im 
mense  wealth  for  his  sovereigns,  becoming  more  and  more 
convinced  that  he  had  discovered  the  fabulous  land  of 
Ophir.  Diaz,  grateful  and  true  to  the  young  Indian  to 
whom  he  owed  his  pardon,  his  fortune,  and  his  happiness, 
had  his  marriage  with  her  blessed  by  the  priests  of  his 
own  faith,  and  governed  her  tribe  in  peace. 

After  this  discovery,  Columbus  yielded  without  hesita 
tion  to  the  orders  of  Aguado,  and  embarked  with  his  judge 
for  Spain.  He  arrived,  after  a  voyage  of  eight  months, 
more  like  a  criminal  led  to  execution  than  a  conqueror  re 
turning  with  trophies.  Calumny,  incredulity,  and  reproach 
met  him  at  Cadiz.  Spain,  which  expected  wonders,  saw 
nothing  come  back  from  the  land  of  its  dreams  but  broken 
adventurers,  accusers,  and  naked  slaves.  The  unfortunate 
cacique,  still  confined  in  the  fetters  of  Ojeda,  and  taken 
over  as  a  living  trophy  for  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  died 
at  sea,  cursing  his  confidence  in  the  Europeans  and  their 
treachery. 

Columbus,  adapting  his  dress  to  the  sadness  and  misery 
of  his  situation,  went  to  Burgos,  where  the  court  then  was, 
in  a  Franciscan's  dress,  with  nothing  over  it  but  a  cord  for 
a  girdle  ;  his  head  bowed  down  with  years,  care,  and  af 
fliction  ;  white-haired,  and  bare-footed.  He  represented 
Genius  kneeling  to  Glory  for  pardon.  Isabella  alone  re 
ceived  him  with  kind  compassion,  and  persisted  in  giving 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  211 

credit  to  his  virtue  and  his  services.  This  constant  though 
secret  favor  of  the  qureen  sustained  the  admiral  against 
the  detractions  and  calumnies  of  the  court.  He  proposed 
new  voyages  and  vaster  discoveries.  They  consented  to 
trust  him  with  more  vessels,  but  they  made  him  waste, 
by  systematic  delays,  the  few  years  for  which  his  ad 
vanced  age  left  him  strength.  The  pious  Isabella,  while 
granting  Columbus  fresh  titles  and  powers,  stipulated  on 
behalf  of  the  Indians  for  conditions  of  liberty  and  human 
ity  far  in  advance  of  the  ideas  of  her  time.  The  instinct 
of  a  woman's  heart  condemned  that  slavery  which  religion 
and  philosophy  could  not  abolish  until  400  years  later. 
At  length  Columbus  was  acquitted,  and  again  allowed  to 
embark  and  set  sail  for  his  new  country  ;  but  hatred  and 
envy  followed  him  even  on  board  the  vessel  on  which  he 
hoisted  his  flag  as  Admiral  of  the  Ocean.  Breviesca,  the 
treasurer  of  the  Patriarch  of  the  Indies,  and  Fonseca,  the 
enemy  of  Columbus,  outrageously  abused  the  admiral  just 
as  he  was  heaving  anchor.  Columbus,  who,  until  then, 
had  been  restrained  by  his  own  strength  of  character,  his 
patience,  and  his  feeling  of  the  greatness  of  his  mission, 
now,  for  the  first  time,  gave  vent  to  his  wrath.  At  this 
last  insult  of  his  enemies  he  at  length  gave  way  to  human 
passion,  and  striking  with  all  the  vigor  of  his  spirit,  and 
all  the  strength  of  his  arm,  redoubled  by  anger,  at  his  vile 
persecutor,  he  felled  him  to  the  deck,  and  trampled  him 
under  foot  in  his  scorn.  Such  was  the  farewell  to  the 
jealousy  of  Europe  of  him  who  seemed  too  great  or  too 
fortunate  for  a  mortal.  This  sudden  vengeance  of  the  ad 
miral  raised  a  new  cause  of  hatred  in  the  heart  of  Fonse 
ca,  and  gave  his  enemies  a  new  point  of  attack.  The 
wind  which  sprung  up  carried  him  out  of  reach  of  the  in 
sults  and  out  of  sight  of  the  shore  of  his  country. 

In  this  voyage  he  changed  his  course,  and  reached  the 
island  of  Trinidad,  which  he  named.  He  rounded  this 
island,  and  coasted  the  true  shore  of  the  American  conti 
nent  near  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco.  The  freshness  of 


212  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

the  sea-water,  which  he  tasted  in.  this  neighborhood,  ought 
to  have  convinced  him  that  a  river  which  poured  a  suffi 
cient  flood  upon  the  ocean  to  freshen  its  waves  could  only 
come  from  the  bosom  of  a  continent.  He  landed,  howev 
er,  on  this  coast  without  suspecting  that  it  was  the  shore 
of  the  unknown  world.  He  found  it  deserted  and  silent 
as  a  lan'd  waiting  for  inhabitants.  A  distant  column  of 
smoke  rising  over  its  vast  forests,  an  abandoned  hut,  and 
some  traces  of  bare  feet  on  the  sand,  were  all  that  he  be 
held  of  America.  He  did  but  plant  his  footstep  there, 
and  pass  a  single  night  under  the  sail  which  served  him 
for  a  tent ;  but  even  this  short  landing  ought  to  have  been 
sufficient  to  bequeath  his  name  to  the  new  hemisphere. 

He  quitted  the  Gulf  of  Paria,  and  after  a  laborious  sur 
vey  of  these  seas,  revisited  the  coasts  of  Hispaniola.  His 
afflictions  of  mind  and  body,  his  long  delay  in  Spain,  the 
ingratitude  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  the  coldness  of  Fer 
dinand,  the  hatred  of  his  ministers,  his  want  of  sleep  dur 
ing  his  voyages,  and  the  infirmities  of  age,  had  affected 
him  more  than  fatigue.  His  eyes  were  inflamed  from 
want  of  rest,  and  from  gazing  upon  maps  and  stars  ;  his 
limbs,  stiffened  and  aching  with  the  gout,  could  scarcely 
support  him.  His  mind  alone  was  vigorous  ;  and  his 
genius,  piercing  into  the  future,  carried  him  in  thought 
beyond  his  sufferings  and  beyond  his  time.  Bartholomew 
Columbus,  his  brother,  who  had  continued  to  govern  the 
colony  during  his  absence,  was  again  his  consolation  and 
succor.  He  came  to  meet  the  admiral  as  soon  as  his 
scouts  signaled  a  sail  in  sight. 

Bartholomew  related  to  his  brother  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  colony  during  his  absence.  He  had  scarcely  finished 
the  exploration  and  subjugation  of  the  country,  when  the 
disorders  of  the  Spaniards  and  the  conspiracies  of  his  own 
lieutenants  undid  the  effects  of  his  wisdom  and  energy. 
A  superintendent  of  the  colony,  named  Roldan,  popular 
and  cunning,  got  together  a  party  among  the  sailors  and 
adventurers,  the  refuse  of  Spain,  thrown  off  by  the  mother 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  213 

country  upon  the  colony.  He  established  himself  with 
them  on  the  opposite  shore  of  San  Domingo,  and  leagued 
against  Bartholomew  with  the  caciques  of  the  neighboring 
tribes.  He  built  or  captured  forts,  in  which  he  defied  the 
authority  of  his  legitimate  chief.  The  Indians,  seeing 
these  divisions  among  their  tyrants,  took  advantage  of 
them  to  rise  in  insurrection  and  to  refuse  the  tribute.  The 
new  settlement  was  in  complete  anarchy.  The  heroism 
of  Bartholomew  alone  retained  some  fragments  of  power 
in  his  hands.  Ojeda  freighted  vessels  on  his  own  account 
for  Spain ;  he  cruised  and  made  a  descent  on  the  south 
ern  shore  of  the  island,  and  leagued  himself  with  Roldan. 
Then  Roldan  betrayed  Ojeda,  and  ranged  himself  again 
under  the  authority  of  the  governor.  During  these  dis 
turbances  of  the  colony,  a  young  Spaniard,  of  remarkable 
beauty,  Don  Fernando  de  Guerara,  won  the  love  of  the 
daughter  of  Anacoana,  the  widow  of  the  cacique  whom 
Ojeda  had  sent  to  Spain,  but  who  died  on  the  voyage. 
Anacoana  herself  was  still  young,  and  celebrated  among 
the  tribes  of  the  island  for  her  incomparable  beauty,  her 
natural  genius,  and  her  poetical  talent,  which  made  her 
the  adored  Sibyl  of  her  countrymen.  Notwithstanding 
the  misfortunes  of  her  husband,  she  entertained  a  great 
admiration  and  an  unconquerable  predilection  for  the  Span 
iards.  The  numerous  tribes  which  she  and  her  brother 
governed  afforded  a  safe  asylum  to  these  strangers.  She 
extended  to  them  hospitality,  money,  and  protection  in 
their  disgrace.  Her  subjects,  more  civilized  than  the  other 
Indian  tribes,  lived  in  peace,  rich  and  happy  under  her 
government. 

Roldan,  who  ruled  over  that  part  of  the  island  which 
was  under  the  beautiful  Anacoana,  became  jealous  of  the 
sojourn  and  influence  of  Fernando  de  Guerara  at  the  court 
of  this  princess.  He  forbade  him  to  marry  her  daughter, 
and  ordered  him  to  embark.  Fernando,  influenced  by  love, 
refused  to  obey,  and  conspired  against  Roldan,  but  was 
surprised  and  taken  prisoner  by  Roldan's  soldiery  in  the 


214  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

house  of  Anacoana,  and  sent  to  Isabella  to  be  tried.  An 
expedition  left  the  capital  of  the  colony  under  pretense  of 
surveying  the  island,  and  was  received  with  great  kind 
ness  in  Anacoana's  capital.  The  perfidious  chief  of  this 
expedition,  abusing  the  confidence  and  hospitality  of  this 
queen,  had  induced  her  to  invite  thirty  caciques  from  the 
south  of  the  island  to  see  the  festivities  she  was  preparing 
for  the  Spaniards.  The  Spaniards,  during  the  dances  and 
feasts  that  they  attended,  arranged  to  fire  the  house,  and 
kill  their  generous  hostess,  with  her  family,  her  guests,  and 
her  people.  They  persuaded  Anacoana,  her  daughter,  and 
the  thirty  caciques  to  see  from  their  balcony  the  evolu 
tions  of  their  horse,  and  a  sham-fight  among  the  cavaliers 
of  their  escort.  The  cavalry  suddenly  fell  upon  the  un 
armed  populace  that  curiosity  had  collected  in  the  square  ; 
they  sabred  them,  and  rode  them  down  under  the  horses' 
feet ;  then,  throwing  a  body  of  infantry  round  the  palace, 
to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  queen  and  her  guests,  they 
fired  the  building,  still  containing  the  remains  of  the  feast 
at  which  they  had  themselves  been  seated,  and  beheld, 
with  a  cruelty  only  equaled  by  their  ingratitude,  the  beau 
tiful  and  unhappy  Anacoana,  forced  back  into  her  palace, 
expire  among  the  flames,  imprecating  upon  her  murderers 
the  vengeance  of  her  gods. 

This  crime  against  hospitality,  innocence,  royalty,  beau 
ty,  and  genius,  of  which  Anacoana  was  the  type  among 
the  Indians,  threw  the  island  into  a  horror  and  commo 
tion,  which  Columbus,  with  all  his  policy  and  all  his  vir 
tue,  was  for  a  long  while  unable  to  subdue.  The  flames 
of  the  palace  and  the  blood  of  this  queen,  whose  dazzling 
beauty  and  national  poetry  filled  her  people  with  affec 
tion  and  enthusiasm,  roused  the  oppressed  against  the  op 
pressors  :  the  island  became  a  field  of  carnage,  a  prison, 
and  a  grave  to  the  unhappy  Indians.  The  Spaniards,  as 
fanatical  in  their  proselytism  as  they  were  barbarous  in 
their  avarice,  now  entered  in  Hispaniola  upon  the  career 
of  crime  and  cruelty  which  was  shortly  afterward  to  de- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  215 

populate  Mexico.  The  embrace  of  the  two  races  was 
fatal  to  the  weakest. 

While  Columbus  was  trying  to  separate  and  pacify  these 
different  portions  of  the  population,  King  Ferdinand,  in 
formed  by  his  enemies  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  island, 
imputed  them  to  the  governor.  Columbus  had  asked  the 
court  to  send  him  a  magistrate  of  high  rank,  whose  decis 
ion  might  command  the  respect  of  his  undisciplined  com 
panions.  The  court  sent  him  Bobadilla,  a  man  of  unim 
peachable  morality,  but  fanatical,  and  of  excessive  pride. 
The  ill-defined  power  with  which  the  royal  decree  had 
invested  him,  while  it  made  him  a  subordinate  officer, 
raised  him,  at  the  same  time,  above  all  authority.  On 
arriving  at  Hispaniola,  prejudiced  against  the  admiral,  he 
summoned  him  to  appear  before  him  as  a  prisoner,  and, 
having  had  chains  brought,  ordered  the  soldiers  to  confine 
their  general.  The  soldiers,  accustomed  to  respect  and 
love  their  chief,  whom  age  and  glory  had  made  more  ven 
erable  in  their  eyes,  refused,  and  remained  still,  as  if  they 
had  been  desired  to  commit  a  sacrilege.  But  Columbus 
himself,  holding  out  his  hands  to  receive  the  chains  his 
king  had  sent  him,  allowed  himself  to  be  fettered  by  one 
of  his  own  domestics — a  volunteer  executioner,  a  vile  ruf 
fian  in  his  own  pay  and  household  service — called  Espi- 
nosa,  and  whose  name  Las  Casas  has  preserved  as  the 
type  of  servile  insolence  and  ingratitude. 

Columbus  himself  ordered  his  two  brothers,  Bartholo 
mew  and  Diego,  who  still  commanded  the  army  in  the  in 
terior,  to  submit  without  resistance  and  without  a  murmur 
to  his  judge.  He  was  shut  up  in  the  dungeon  of  Fort 
Isabella  for  several  months,  while  the  informations  were 
being  taken  for  his  trial,  in  which  his  rebellious  subjects 
and  all  his  enemies,  now  his  accusers  and  jury,  vied  with 
each  other  in  charging  him  with  the  most  absurd  and  most 
hateful  imputations.  An  object  of  public  scorn  and  de 
testation,  he  heard  from  his  prison  the  savage  jests  and 
boasts  of  his  persecutors,  who  assembled  round  him  every 


216  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

evening  to  insult  his  misfortunes.  He  expected  hourly 
to  see  the  order  for  his  execution.  But  Bobadilla  did  not 
venture  upon  this  last  crime.  He  ordered  the  admiral  to 
be  banished  the  colony  and  sent  to  Spain,  there  to  meet 
the  justice  or  mercy  of  the  king.  Alonso  de  Villejo  was 
appointed  to  guard  him  during  the  passage — a  man  of 
honor,  obedient  from  a  sense  of  military  duty  ;  but,  though 
obedient,  disgusted  at  his  orders  and  merciful  to  his  pris 
oner.  Columbus,  seeing  him  enter  his  dungeon,  did  not 
doubt  that  his  last  hour  had  come.  His  innocence  and 
prayer  had  prepared  him  to  meet  death.  Human  nature, 
however,  made  him  feel  some  anxiety.  "Where  are  you 
going  to  take  me  ?"  said  he  to  the  officer,  with  an  inquir 
ing  look  as  well  as  tone.  "  To  the  vessel  in  which  you 
are  to  embark,  my  lord,"  said  Villejo.  "  To  embark  ?"  said 
Columbus,  hesitating  to  believe  in  this  message,  which  im 
plied  that  his  life  was  safe  ;  "  do  not  deceive  me,  Villejo  !" 
"No,  my  lord,"  replied  the  officer,  "I  swear,  before  God, 
that  nothing  is  more  true."  He  assisted  the  tottering 
steps  of  the  admiral,  and  placed  him  on  board,  loaded  with 
irons,  and  pursued  by  the  hooting  of  a  vile  populace. 

The  vessel  had  hardly  set  sail,  when  Villejo  and  An 
dreas  Martin,  commanders  of  the  ship  which  had  become 
the  floating  dungeon  of  their  chief,  respectfully  addressed 
him  at  the  head  of  the  crew,  and  desired  to  take  off  his 
irons.  Columbus,  to  whom  these  fetters  were  both  a  sign 
of  obedience  to  Isabella  and  a  symbol  of  the  wickedness 
of  men,  from  which  he  suffered  in  body,  but  at  which  he 
rejoiced  in  mind,  thanked  them,  but  obstinately  refused 
to  take  off  his  gyves.  "  No,"  said  he,  "  my  sovereigns 
have  written  to  rne  to  submit  to  Bobadilla.  It  is  in  their 
names  that  I  have  been  put  in  these  irons,  which  I  will 
wear  until  they  themselves  order  them  to  be  removed  ; 
and  I  will  afterward  preserve  them,"  he  added,  with  an 
allusion  to  his  services  and  innocence,  "  as  a  reminiscence 
of  the  reward  b'estowed  by  men  upon  my  labors." 

His  son  and  Las  Casas  both  relate  that  Columbus  faith- 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


217 


fully  kept  this  promise  ;  that  he  always  had  his  chains 
hung  up  in  his  sight  wherever  he  lived ;  and  that,  in  his 
will,  he  ordered  them  to  be  placed  with  him  in  his  coffin, 
as  if  he  had  desired  to  appeal  to  God  against  the  injustice 
and  ingratitude  of  his  contemporaries,  and  to  take  with 
him  to  heaven  a  material  proof  of  the  wickedness  and 
cruelty  with  which  he  had  been  treated  on  earth. 

But  party  hatred  did  not  cross  the  ocean.  The  spolia 
tion,  the  imprisonment,  and  the  fetters  of  Columbus  roused 
the  pity  and  the  indignation  of  the  people  of  Cadiz.  When 
they  saw  the  old  man  who  had  presented  a  new  empire 
to  their  country — himself  brought  back  from  that  empire 
as  a  vile  miscreant,  and  repaid  for  his  services  with  dis 
grace — all  exclaimed  against  Bobadilla.  Isabella,  who 
was  then  at  Granada,  shed  tears  over  this  indignity,  and 
commanded  that  his  fetters  should  be  changed  for  rich 
robes,  and  his  jailers  for  an  escort  of  honor.  She  sent  for 
him  to  Granada  ;  he  fell  at  her  feet,  and  sobs  of  thankful 
ness  for  some  time  interrupted  his  speech.  The  king  and 
queen  did  not  even  deign  to  examine  the  accusations 
which  were  laid  to  his  charge.  He  was  acquitted  as 
much  in  consequence  of  their  respect  as  of  his  own  merits. 
They  kept  the  admiral  some  time  at  their  court,  and  sent 
out  another  governor,  named  Ovando,  to  replace  Bobadilla. 
Ovando  had  the  principles  which  make  a  man  honest 
rather  than  the  virtues  which  produce  generosity  of  char 
acter.  He  was  one  of  those  with  whom  every  thing  is 
narrow,  even  to  their  sense  of  duty,  and  in  whom  honesty 
seems  rather  to  have  arisen  from  contracted  scruples  than 
from  a  feeling  of  honor.  Least  of  all  was  he  fitted  to  un 
derstand  and  replace  a  great  man.  He  was  ordered  by 
Isabella  to  protect  the  Indians,  and  was  forbidden  to  sell 
them  as  slaves.  The  share  in  the  revenue,  guaranteed  by 
treaty  to  Columbus,  was  to  be  remitted  to  him  in  Spain, 
as  well  as  the  treasures  of  which  he  had  been  deprived 
by  Bobadilla.  A  fleet  of  thirty  sail  escorted  the  new  gov 
ernor  to  Hispaniola. 

VOL.  T.— K 


218  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

Columbus,  unaffected  by  old  age,  and  recruited  from  his 
sufferings,  was  impatient  of  rest  and  even  of  the  honors  of 
the  whole  country.  Vasco  de  Gama  had  just  discovered 
the  road  to  India  by  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  The  world 
was  full  of  admiration  at  this  discovery  of  the  Portuguese 
mariner.  A  noble  spirit  of  chivalry  occupied  the  mind  of 
the  Genoese  navigator.  Convinced  of  the  circularity  of 
the  earth,  he  thought  to  reach  the  prolongation  of  the 
eastern  continent  by  sailing  on  a  straight  course  westward, 
and  he  solicited  from  the  Spanish  court  the  command  of 
a  fourth  expedition.  He  embarked  at  Cadiz  on  the  19th  of 
May,  1502,  for  the  last  time,  accompanied  by  his  brother 
Bartholomew  Columbus,  and  his  son  Fernando,  then  four 
teen  years  of  age.  His  squadron  consisted  of  four  small 
vessels  adapted  for  cruising  on  the  coast,  and  exploring 
without  danger  the  gulfs  and  estuaries  which  he  wished 
to  examine.  His  crews  only  mustered  150  strong.  Al 
though  nearly  seventy,  his  vigorous  old  age  had,  from  his 
mental  energy,  resisted  the  waste  of  years  :  neither  his 
severe  illnesses  nor  the  approach  of  death  could  turn  him 
aside  from  his  purpose.  "  Man,"  he  would  say,  "  is  an 
instrument  that  must  work  until  it  breaks  in  the  hands  of 
Providence,  which  uses  it  for  its  own  purposes.  As  long 
as  the  body  is  able,  the  spirit  must  be  willing." 

He  had  intended  to  touch  at  Hispaniola  to  refit,  and  had 
authority  from  the  court  to  do  so.  He  crossed  the  ocean 
in  stormy  weather,  and  arrived  off  Hispaniola  with  broken 
masts  and  torn  sails,  short  of  water  and  provisions.  His 
nautical  experience  made  him  foresee  a  hurricane  more 
terrible  than  he  had  yet  encountered.  He  sent  a  boat  to 
ask  Ovando's  leave  to  take  shelter  in  the  roads  of  Isabella. 
Aware  of  the  impending  danger,  Columbus,  in  his  letter, 
warned  Ovando  to  delay  the  departure  of  a  numerous  con 
voy  ready  to  start  from  Hispaniola  for  Spain,  laden  with 
all  the  treasures  of  the  New  World.  Ovando  mercilessly 
refused  Columbus  a  brief  refuge  in  the  very  port  that  he 
himself  had  discovered.  He  bore  away  indignantly,  and. 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


219 


seeking  a  shelter  under  the  remotest  cliffs  of  the  island, 
beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  Ovando,  waited  for  the  tempest 
that  he  had  foretold.  It  destroyed  the  governor's  whole 
fleet,  with  all  its  treasures,  and  cost  the  lives  of  1000 
Spaniards.  Columbus  felt  its  effects  even  in  this  distant 
roadstead  in  which  he  had  taken  shelter.  He  sighed  over 
the  misfortunes  of  his  countrymen,  and,  leaving  this  in 
hospitable  island,  revisited  Jamaica,  and  at  length  landed 
on  the  continent  in  the  bay  of  Honduras.  He  encountered 
sixty  days  of  continued  tempest,  buffeted  about  from  cape 
to  cape  and  isle  to  isle  on  the  unknown  shore  of  that 
America  whose  conquest  the  elements  seemed  to  dispute 
with  him.  He  lost  one  of  his  vessels,  and  the  fifty  men 
who  composed  its  crew,  at  the  mouth  of  a  river  which  he 
named  Desastro. 

As  the  sea  seemed  resolutely  to  obstruct  the  road  to  the 
Indies,  which  he  always  had  in  his  mind,  he  cast  anchor 
between  the  continent  and  a  charming  island.  He  was 
visited  by  the  Indians,  and  kept  seven  of  them  on  board 
with  him,  in  order  that  he  might  learn  their  language  and 
obtain  intelligence.  He  cruised  with  them  along  a  shore 
where  the  natives  had  gold  and  pearls  in  abundance.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1504,  he  ascended  the  river 
Veragua,  and  sent  his  brother  Bartholomew,  at  the  head 
of  sixty  Spaniards,  to  visit  the  villages  on  its  banks,  and 
search  for  gold  mines.  He  found  nothing  but  forests  and 
naked  savages.  The  admiral  quitted  this  river,  and  sailed 
up  another,  of  which  the  banks  were  peopled  by  Indians, 
who  exchanged  gold  with  his  crews  for  the  commonest 
trifles  of  Europe.  He  thought  he  had  attained  the  object 
of  his  hopes.  He  had  reached  the  climax  of  his  misfor 
tunes.  War  broke  out  between  this  handful  of  Europeans 
and  the  numerous  population  of  these  shores.  Bartholo 
mew  Columbus  struck  down  with  his  own  hand  the  most 
powerful  and  most  dreaded  cacique  of  the  Indians,  and 
made  him  prisoner.  A  village  which  the  companions  of 
Columbus  had  built  on  the  coast  to  establish  a  trade  with 


220  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

the  interior  was  surprised  and  burned  by  the  natives. 
Eight  Spaniards,  pierced  by  arrows,  perished  under  the 
ruins  of  their  cabins.  Bartholomew  rallied  the  boldest  of 
his  company,  and  drove  back  the  savages  into  their  forest ; 
but  the  blood  that  had  been  shed  increased  the  mutual 
hatred  of  the  races,  and  the  Indian  canoes  in  great  force 
attacked  a  boat  from  the  squadron,  which  was  trying  to 
pull  further  up  the  river.  All  the  Europeans  on  board 
were  massacred.  During  this  sanguinary  struggle,  Colum 
bus,  who  was  confined  to  his  ship  by  his  bodily  infirmi 
ties  and  sickness,  kept  the  cacique  and  the  Indian  chiefs 
prisoners  on  board  the  vessel.  These  chiefs,  being  made 
acquainted  with  the  wasting  of  their  territories  and  the 
capture  of  their  wives,  tried  to  escape  during  a  dark  night 
by  lifting  up  the  hatch  that  covered  their  floating  dungeon. 
The  crew,  aroused  by  the  noise,  drove  them  down  below, 
and  fastened  the  scuttle  with  an  iron  bar.  The  next  day, 
when  the  scuttle  was  opened  to  give  them  food,  they  were 
all  found  dead.  They  had  all  killed  one  another  in  de 
spair,  to  escape  slavery. 

Columbus  was  shortly  afterward  separated  by  the  break 
ers  from  his  brother  Bartholomew,  who  had  remained 
ashore  with  the  remainder  of  the  expedition,  and  his  only 
means  of  communication  was  owing  to  the  courage  of  one 
of  the  officers,  who  swam  to  and  fro  across  the  surf  with 
news  that  became  worse  and  worse  every  day.  He  could 
not  leave  his  companions,  or  abandon  them  in  their  mis 
fortunes.  Anxiety,  sickness,  hunger  —  the  prospect  of  a 
shipwreck  without  relief,  and  unwitnessed,  on  the  much- 
desired  but  fatal  continent — were  warring  in  his  breast 
with  his  heroic  constancy  and  pious  submission  to  the  com 
mands  of  God,  of  whom  he  felt  that  he  was  at  once  the 
messenger  and  the  victim.  He  thus  described  the  state 
of  his  mind  during  his  vigils  :  "  I  was  tired,  and  had  fallen 
asleep,  when  a  sad  and  piteous  voice  spoke  these  words  to 
me  :  '  Weak  man,  slow  to  believe  and  to  serve  thy  God, 
the  God  of  the  Universe!  How  otherwise  did  God  unto 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  221 

Moses  and  David  his  servants?  From  the  time  of  thy 
birth,  he  has  had  great  care  of  thee.  As  soon  as  thou 
reachedst  man's  estate,  he  made  thy  obscure  name  won 
derfully  known  throughout  the  world ;  he  gave  thee  pos 
session  of  the  Indies,  the  favored  part  of  his  creation  ;  he 
let  thee  find  the  key  of  the  gates  of  the  unmeasured  ocean, 
until  then  an  impassable  barrier.  Turn  thee  toward  Him, 
and  bless  his  mercies  to  thee  ;  and  if  there  is  yet  a  great 
enterprise  to  be  accomplished,  thy  age  will  be  no  obstacle 
to  his  designs.  Was  not  Abraham  more  than  a  hundred 
years  of  age  when  he  begat  Isaac,  or  was  Sarah  young  ? 
Who  caused  thy  present  afflictions,  God  or  the  world  ? 
The  promises  he  made  thee  he  hath  never  broken.  He 
never  told  thee,  after  thou  hadst  done  his  bidding,  that 
thou  hadst  not  understood  his  orders.  He  renders  all  that 
he  owes,  yea,  and  more  besides.  What  thou  sufFerest  to 
day  is  thy  payment  for  the  labor  and  danger  thou  hast  un 
dergone  for  other  masters.  Fear  nothing,  therefore  ;  take 
courage  even  in  thy  despair.  All  thy  tribulations  are  en 
graven  on  marble,  and  not  without  reason,  for  surely  will 
they  be  accomplished  ;'  and  the  voice  which  had  spoken 
to  me  left  me  full  of  consolation  and  of  courage." 

A  change  of  season  at  length  brought  about  a  change 
of  weather,  and  the  two  brothers,  so  long  separated,  again 
met  on  board.  They  sailed  slowly  toward  Hispaniola. 
One  of  the  three  remaining  caravels  foundered  from  utter 
decay  as  they  neared  the  shore.  He  had  now  only  two 
crazy  old  vessels  for  himself  and  his  three  crews.  His 
companions,  depressed  in  spirits,  without  provisions  and 
without  strength,  his  anchors  lost,  his  vessels  leaky,  and 
all  their  planks  worm-eaten  and  completely  honeycombed ; 
the  pitiless  storms  driving  him  back  from  Hispaniola  to 
ward  Jamaica,  he  had  just  time  to  run  his  water-logged 
vessels  aground  upon  the  sand  of  an  unknown  bay.  He 
tied  them  together  into  one  mass  with  cables,  and,  joining 
their  decks  with  a  platform  of  planks,  over  which  he  spread 
an  awning  for  his  crew,  he  waited,  in  this  dreadful  situ- 


222  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ation  of  a  shipwrecked  company,  for  the  help  of  Provi 
dence. 

The  Indians,  attracted  by  the  shipwreck  and  the  singu 
lar  fortress  built  by  the  strangers  upon  their  beach,  ex 
changed  provisions  for  worthless  objects,  to  which  novelty 
gave  value  in  their  eyes.  But  months  passed  away,  pro 
visions  were  getting  scarce,  and  fear  for  the  future,  and 
the  seditious  murmurs  of  the  crews,  gave  rise  to  great  anx 
iety  in  the  mind  of  the  admiral.  The  only  hope  of  safe 
ty  left  was  in  making  Ovando,  the  governor  of  Hispaniola, 
acquainted  with  his  position.  But  fifty  leagues  of  sea 
rolled  between  Hispaniola  and  Jamaica.  An  Indian  canoe 
was  the  only  craft  he  could  set  afloat ;  and  who  would  be 
sufficiently  generous  to  risk  his  life  for  his  companions 
upon  such  a  long  and  perilous  voyage  in  a  hollow  tree,  and 
without  any  guidance  but  a  paddle  ?  Diego  Mendez,  a 
young  officer  of  the  squadron,  who  had  already  shown,  on 
other  occasions,  that  disregard  of  self  which  makes  heroes 
and  accomplishes  wonders,  presented  himself  to  the  admi 
ral's  mind.  He  had  him  secretly  called  to  his  bed,  to  which 
he  was  confined  by  the  gout,  and  said  to  him,  "  My  son, 
of  all  that  are  here,  you  and  I  alone  understand  the  pres 
ent  danger,  in  which  our  only  prospect  is  death.  There 
still  remains  an  experiment  to  be  tried — for  one  of  us  to 
expose  himself  to  death  in  the  endeavor  to  save  all.  Will 
you  be  that  one?"  Mendez  answered,  "  My  lord,  I  have 
several  times  risked  my  life  for  my  companions  ;  but  some 
of  them  murmur,  and  say  that  your  favor  always  singles 
me  out  when  there  is  any  daring  exploit  to  be  attempted. 
Call  upon  the  whole  crew  to-morrow  morning  for  one  of 
them  to  undertake  the  duty  you  offer  me.  If  no  one  vol 
unteers,  I  will  accept  it."  The  admiral  did  as  Mendez  de 
sired.  All  the  crew  said  it  was  unreasonable  to  require 
them  to  make  such  a  long  passage  in  a  mere  morsel  of 
wood,  the  sport  of  the  winds  and  waves.  Mendez  then 
stepped  forward  modestly,  and  said,  "  I  have  but  a  single 
life  to  lose,  but  I  am  ready  to  risk  it  in  your  service,  and 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 


223 


in  the  hope  of  saving  all.  I  confide  myself  to  the  proteo 
tion  of  God."  He  set  off,  and  soon  disappeared  in  the  dim 
ness  of  the  horizon  from  the  Spaniards  whose  lives  depend 
ed  upon  his. 

But  hopeless  expectation,  absolute  isolation  from  the 
known  world,  and  excess  of  misery,  excited  his  compan 
ions  against  the  admiral,  to  whom  they  attributed  their 
misfortunes.  Two  of  his  favorite  officers,  Diego  and  Fran 
cesco  de  Porras,  whom  he  had  treated  as  his  own  sons,  and 
intrusted  with  the  principal  command  under  himself,  were 
the  first  to  raise  against  him  murmurs  and  abuse,  and  at 
last  open  sedition.  They  took  advantage  of  a  crisis  of  his 
complaint,  which  confined  their  benefactor  to  his  bed,  and, 
drawing  after  them  half  the  sailors  and  soldiers,  they  seized 
on  a  portion  of  the  provisions  and  arms,  assembled  their 
accomplices  to  the  cry  of  "  Castile  !  Castile  !"  and  abused 
and  insulted  the  admiral.  Columbus,  whose  illness  made 
him  helpless,  and  who  could  scarcely  raise  his  hands  to 
heaven  to  pray,  in  vain  begged  of  them  to  return  to  their 
duty.  They  despised  alike  his  entreaties  and  his  orders. 
They  reproached  him  with  his  age,  his  white  hairs,  his 
personal  sufferings,  and  even  raised  their  weapons  against 
him.  Bartholomew  Columbus  seized  his  lance  and  rush 
ed  between  the  mutineers  and  the  admiral,  who  was  sup 
ported  in  the  arms  of  his  servants.  Assisted  by  a  part  of 
the  crew,  he  succeeded  in  saving  the  life  and  :u-dintaining 
the  authority  of  his  brother  on  board  the  vessels.  The 
two  Porras,  and  fifty  of  their  accomplices,  quitted  the^ships, 
ravaged  the  country,  raised  the  enmity  of  the  natives  by 
their  excesses,  and  tried  unsuccessfully  to  build  vessels  to 
enable  them  to  reach  Hispaniola — an  attempt  in  which 
part  of  them  perished.  They  then  came  back  and  attack 
ed  Columbus  and  their  fellow-countrymen  on  board  the 
ships,  but  were  repulsed  by  the  stalwart  arm  of  Bartholo 
mew,  who  killed  their  chief,  Francesco  Porras ;  and  the 
remainder  at  length  submitted  to  their  duty,  begging  Co 
lumbus  to  forgive  their  ingratitude  and  their  rebellion. 


224  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS; 

Meanwhile,  the  messenger  of  Columbus,  in  his  frail  bark, 
guided  by  Providence  across  the  waste  of  waters,  had  at 
length  been  thrown,  a  remnant  of  a  distant  wreck,  upon 
the  rocks  of  Hispaniola.  Guided  across  the  island  by  the 
natives,  he  had  succeeded,  after  endless  fatigue  and  dan 
gers,  in  reaching  the  governor  Ovando.  He  gave  him  the 
admiral's  message,  and  added  to  the  interest  of  his  mis 
sion  by  the  pity  which  his  account  of  the  desperate  situa 
tion  of  Columbus  and  his  companions  ought  to  have  in 
spired  in  his  countrymen.  But,  whether  from  incredulity 
or  ignorance,  or  a  secret  hope  of  effecting  the  ruin  of  a  ri 
val  too  great  for  his  presence  not  to  be  embarrassing,  the 
Spanish  authorities  of  Hispaniola  allowed,  under  various 
pretenses,  days,  and  even  months,  to  pass.  Then  they  sent, 
as  it  were  unwillingly,  a  small  vessel  commanded  by  Es 
cobar,  merely  to  reconnoitre  the  position  of  the  shipwreck 
ed  vessels,  without  landing  on  the  coast  or  speaking  with 
the  crews.  This  vessel  had  appeared  at  a  distance  one 
night  to  Columbus  and  his  sailors,  and  again  disappeared 
from  their  eyes  so  mysteriously,  that  their  superstition  had 
made  them  take  it  for  a  phantom-ship,  which  came  to 
mock  their  hopes  or  to  announce  their  death. 

Ovando  at  length  made  up  his  mind  to  send  ships  to  the 
admiral,  to  rescue  him  from  sedition,  famine,  and  death. 
After  a  sixteen  months'  shipwreck,  the  admiral,  overcome 
with  age  and  infirmities,  increased  by  his  misfortunes,  re 
visited,  for  a  short  season,  the  island  which  he  had  made 
an  errjpire,  and  from  which  jealousy  and  ingratitude  had 
driven  him.  He  remained  for  some  months  in  the  house 
of  the  governor,  well  received  in  appearance,  but  deprived 
of  all  influence  in  the  government,  seeing  his  enemies  in 
favor,  and  his  friends  banished  or  persecuted  for  their  fidel 
ity  to  him  ;  grieving  over  the  ruin  and  slavery  of  the  land 
which  he  had  found  a  garden,  and  now  left  a  grave  to  his 
beloved  Indians.  His  own  property  confiscated,  his  rev 
enues  plundered,  his  estates  depopulated  or  wasted,  ex 
posed  him  in  his  old  age  to  poverty,  want,  and  sickness. 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  225 

He,  and  his  son  and  brother,  with  a  few  servants,  were  at 
length  put  on  board  a  vessel  bound  for  Europe,  and  a  con 
tinued  tempest  swept  him  on  through  storm  after  storm 
to  San  Lucar,  where  he  disembarked  on  the  7th  of  No 
vember.  He  was  thence  removed  to  Seville,  where  he  ar-' 
rived,  broken  down  in  health,  in  a  dying  state,  but  unsub 
dued  in  spirit,  unconquerable  in  will,  and  still  full  of  hope 
for  the  future. 

The  possessor  of  so  many  islands  and  continents  had 
not  where  to  lay  his  head.  "  If  I  want  to  eat  or  to  sleep," 
he  writes  to  his  son,  "  I  must  knock  at  the  door  of  an  inn, 
and  oftentimes  1  have  not  the  money  to  pay  for  a  meal  or 
a  bed."  His  misfortunes  and  his  poverty  were  less  bur 
densome  to  him  than  the  misery  of  his  companions  and 
servants,  whom  his  expectations  had  induced  to  follow  his 
fortunes,  and  who  reproached  him  with  their  want.  He 
wrote  to  the  king  and  queen  on  their  behalf.  But  the 
ungrateful  Porras,  a  defeated  rebel,  who  owed  his  life  to 
the  magnanimity  of  Columbus,  had  preceded  him  at  court, 
and  prejudiced  Ferdinand  against  his  benefactor.  "  I 
have  served  your  majesty,"  Columbus  wrote  to  the  king 
and  queen,  "  with  as  much  zeal  and  constancy  as  I  would 
have  worked  for  the  hope  of  heaven,  and  if  I  have  failed 
in  any  thing,  it  is  because  my  skill  or  power  could  not 
reach  it." 

He  relied  with  reason  on  the  justice  and  favor  of  his 
protectress  Isabella,  but  this  support  of  his  cause  was  also 
about  to  fail  him.  Domestic  misfortune  had  reached  her 
also ;  she  was  languishing,  inconsolable  for  her  favorite 
daughter's  death.  "While  dying,  she  wrote  in  her  will  this 
evidence  of  her  humility  in  her  exalted  station,  and  of  con 
stant  love  for  the  husband  to  whom  she  wished  to  remain 
united  even  in  death.  "  I  desire  that  my  body  be  buried 
in  the  Alhambra  of  Granada,  in  a  grave  level  with  the 
ground  and  trodden  down,  and  that  my  name  be  engraved 
on  a  flat  tombstone.  But  if  my  lord  the  king  chooses  a 
burial-place  in  some  other  temple  or  some  other  part  of 

K2 


226  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

our  dominions,  then  I  desire  that  my  body  be  exhumed, 
and  removed,  and  buried  by  the  side  of  his,  in  order  that 
the  union  of  our  bodies  in  the  grave  may  signify  and  at 
test  the  union  of  our  hearts  during  our  lives,  and  I  hope, 
by  the  mercy  of  God,  the  union  of  our  souls  in  heaven." 

On  hearing  of  the  death  of  his  benefactress,  Columbus 
wrote  to  Diego  in  these  words  :  "  0,  my  son,  let  this  serve 
to  teach  you  what  is  now  your  duty.  The  first  thing  is  to 
recommend  the  soul  of  our  sovereign  lady  piously  and  af 
fectionately  to  God.  She  was  so  good  and  so  holy,  that 
we  may  feel  sure  of  her  eternal  glory,  and  of  her  being 
now  sheltered  in  the  bosom  of  God  from  the  cares  and  trib 
ulations  of  this  world.  The  second  thing  that  I  have  to 
desire  is,  that  you  will  watch  and  labor  with  all  your 
might  for  the  king's  service  :  he  is  the  chief  of  Christen 
dom.  Remember,  with  regard  to  him,  that  when  the  head 
suffers,  all  the  limbs  feel  it.  All  the  world  ought  to  pray 
for  the  peace  and  preservation  of  his  life,  but  especially 
we  who  are  his  servants." 

Such  were  Columbus's  feelings  of  gratitude  and  fidelity, 
even  at  the  height  of  his  disappointments.  But  the  death 
of  Isabella  affected  not  only  his  fortunes,  but  his  life. 
Obliged  to  stop  at  Seville  for  want  of  means  and  by  in 
creasing  infirmities,  his  only  comforters  were  his  brother 
Bartholomew  and  his  second  son  Fernando.  This  son, 
now  sixteen  years  of  age,  exhibited  all  the  serious  qualities 
of  middle  life,  with  all  the  graces  of  youth :  "  Love  him  as 
a  brother,"  Columbus  writes  to  his  eldest  son  Diego,  then 
at  court ;  "  you  have  no  other.  Ten  brothers  would  not  be 
too  many  for  you.  I  never  had  better  friends  than  my 
brothers."  He  desired  Bartholomew  to  take  the  youth  to 
court,  and  commend  him  to  the  care  of  his  legitimate  son 
Diego.  Bartholomew  started  with  Fernando  for  Segovia, 
where  the  court  then  resided.  He  in  vain  solicited  atten 
tion  and  justice  for  Columbus,  When  the  approach  of 
spring  made  the  air  more  genial,  Columbus,  accompanied 
by  his  brother  and  his  sons,  set  out  himself  for  Segovia. 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  227 

His  presence  was  troublesome  to  the  king,  and  his  pover 
ty  was  felt  as  a  reproach.  The  judgment  on  his  conduct, 
and  the  question  of  restoring  his  property,  were  referred 
to  courts  of  conscience,  which,  without  venturing  to  deny 
his  rights,  wore  out  his  patience  by  delay.  They  were, 
at  the  same  time,  wearing  out  his  life.  His  mental  anxi 
ety,  and  his  sense  of  the  poverty  in  which  he  was  likely 
to  leave  his  brothers  and  sons,  added  to  his  bodily  suffer 
ings.  From  his  sick-bed  he  wrote  to  the  king :  "  Your 
majesty  does  not  think  fit  to  keep  the  promises  which  I 
have  received  from  you  and  from  the  queen,  who  is  now 
in  glory.  To  struggle  with  your  will  would  be  wrestling 
with  the  wind.  I  have  done  my  duty.  May  God,  who 
has  always  .been  good  to  me,  accomplish  what  remains, 
according  to  his  divine  justice  !" 

He  felt  that  life,  and  not  his  firmness,  was  about  to  fail 
him.  His  brother  Bartholomew  and  his  son  Diego  had 
gone  by  his  order  to  petition  the  Q,ueen  Juana,  Isabella's 
daughter,  who  was  returning  from  Flanders  to  Castile. 
Physical  sufferings  and  mental  anguish  ;  the  feeling  that 
his  days,  of  which  too  few  remained  to  leave  him  a  hope 
of  seeing  justice  done,  Avere  drawing  to  a  close  ;  the  tri 
umph  of  his  enemies  at  court,  the  contempt  of  the  cour 
tiers,  the  coldness  of  the  prince,  the  approach  of  death, 
the  loneliness  in  which  he  was  left  in  a  forgetful  or  un 
grateful  town  by  the  absence  of  his  brother  and  sons  ;  the 
remembrance  of  a  life  of  which  one  half  was  spent  in 
waiting  for  the  advent  of  a  great  destiny,  and  the  other 
half  in  brooding  over  the  uselessness  of  genius  ;  doubtless, 
also,  pity  for  the  innocent  and  happy  race  of  Indians,  whom 
he  had  found  free  and  infantile  in  their  garden  of  delight, 
and  whom  he  left  slaves,  despoiled  and  outraged,  in  the 
hands  of  their  oppressors  ;  his  brothers  without  support, 
and  his  sons  without  inheritance  ;  doubts  as  to  the  judg 
ment  of  posterity  on  his  fame  ;  the  agony  of  genius  mis 
understood — all  these  afflictions  of  his  limbs,  body,  soul, 
and  mind — of  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future — uni- 


228  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

ted  in  weighing  upon  the  spirit  of  the  old  man  in  his  lone 
chamber  in  Segovia,  during  the  absence  of  his  brothers  and 
his  sons.  He  asked  one  of  his  servants — the  old  and  last 
remaining  companion  of  his  voyages,  his  glory,  and  his 
misfortunes — to  bring  to  his  bedside  a  little  breviary,  a 
gift  made  him  by  Pope  Alexander  the  Sixth,  at  the  time 
when  sovereigns  treated  him  as  a  sovereign.  He  wrote 
his  will,  with  a  weak  hand,  on  a  page  of  this  book,  to 
which  he  attributed  the  virtue  of  divine  consecration. 

Strange  sight  for  his  poor  servant!  An  old  man, 
abandoned  by  the  world,  and  dying  on  a  pauper's  bed  in 
a  hired  chamber  at  Segovia,  distributing,  in  his  will,  seas, 
hemispheres,  islands,  continents,  nations,  and  empires  ! 
He  appointed,  as  his  principal  heir,  his  legitimate  son 
Diego ;  in  case  of  his  dying  without  issue,  his  rights  were 
to  pass  to  his  natural  brother,  the  young  Fernando  :  and, 
lastly,  if  Fernando  also  died  without  leaving  children, 
the  inheritance  passed  to  his  uncle,  Don  Bartholomew, 
and  his  descendants.  "I  pray  my  sovereigns  and  their 
successors,"  he  continued,  "  to  maintain  forever  my  wish 
es  in  the  distribution  of  my  rights,  my  goods,  and  my 
charges  ;  for  I,  a  native  of  Genoa,  came  to  Castile  to  serve 
them,  and  have  discovered  in  the  far  west  the  continent 
and  the  isles  of  India !  .  .  :  My  son  is  to  inherit  my  office 
of  Admiral  of  the  Seas  to  the  westward  of  a  line  drawn 
from  one  pole  to  the  other!  ..."  Passing  from  this  to 
the  distribution  of  the  revenue  guaranteed  to  him  by  his 
treaty  with  Isabella  and  Ferdinand,  the  old  man  divided, 
with  liberality  and  wisdom,  the  millions  which  were  to  ac 
crue  to  his  family  between  his  sons  and  his  brother  Bartho 
lomew.  He  assigned  one  fourth  to  his  brother,  'and  two 
millions  a  year  to  Fernando,  his  second  son.  He  remem 
bered  the  mother  of  this  child,  Donna  Beatrice  Enriquez, 
whom  he  had  never  married,  and  with  whose  abandon 
ment,  during  his  long  wanderings  on  the  ocean,  his  con 
science  reproached  him.  He  charged  his  heir  to  make  a 
liberal  pension  to  her  who  had  been  the  companion  of 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  229 

his  days  of  obscurity,  when  he  was  struggling  at  Toledo 
against  the  hardship  of  his  former  lot.  He  even  seemed 
to  accuse  himself  of  some  ingratitude  or  neglect  toward 
this  his  second  love,  for  he  appends  to  the  legacy  on  her 
behalf  these  words,  which  must  have  hung  heavy  on  his 
dying  hand  :  "  and  let  this  be  done  for  the  relief  of  my 
conscience,  for  her  name  and  recollection  are  a  heavy 
load  upon  my  soul." 

Then,  reverting  to  that  first  country  which  the  adoption 
of  another  can  never  efface  from  remembrance,  he  called 
to  mind  the  city  of  Genoa,  in  which  time  had  swept  away 
all  his  father's  house,  but  where  he  still  had  some  distant 
relatives,  like  the  roots  which  remain  in  the  ground  when 
the  trunk  is  hewn  down.  "I  command  Diego,  my  son," 
he  writes,  "  always  to  maintain  in  the  city  of  Genoa  a 
member  of  our  family,  who  may  reside  there  with  his 
wife,  and  to  secure  to  him  an  honorable  sustenance,  such 
as  befits  a  relative  of  ours.  I  desire  that  this  relative 
may  retain  his  domicile  and  the  citizenship  of  that  city ; 
for  there  was  I  born,  and  thence  did  I  come. 

"  Let  my  son,"  he  adds,  with  that  chivalrous  sentiment 
of  his  own  vassalage  and  allegiance  to  the  sovereign 
which  at  that  time  constituted  almost  a  second  religion, 
"let  my  son  serve,  in  remembrance  of  me,  the  king  and 
queen  and  their  successors,  even  to  the  loss  of  the  goods 
of  this  life,  since,  after  God,  it  was  they  who  furnished  me 
with  the  means  of  making  my  discoveries 

"  It  is  very  true,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  with  an  involun 
tary  bitterness  of  expression,  like  an  ill-repressed  feeling 
of  injury,  "  that  I  came  from  afar  to  make  the  offer,  and 
that  much  time  elapsed  before  any  one  would  believe  in 
the  gift  I  brought  their  majesties  ;  but  this  was  natural ; 
for  it  was  for  all  the  world  a  mystery,  which  could  not 
fail  to  excite  unbelief!  Wherefore  I  must  share  the  glory 
with  these  sovereigns,  who  were  the  first  to  put  faith  in 
me." 

Columbus's  thoughts  next  reverted  to  God,  whom  he 


230  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

had  always  looked  upon  as  his  only  true  suzerain,  as  if 
he  had  been  the  immediate  vassal  of  that  Providence 
whose  instrument  and  minister  above  all  others  he  felt 
himself  to  be.  Resignation  and  enthusiasm,  the  two 
mainsprings  of  his  life,  did  not  fail  him  in  the  hour  of 
death.  He  humbled  himself  beneath  the  hand  of  nature, 
and  was  exalted  by  the  hand  of  God,  whom  he  had  al 
ways  held  in  sight  through  all  his  triumphs  and  reverses, 
and  of  whom  he  had  a  nearer  view  at  the  moment  of  his 
departure  from  earth.  He  was  full  of  repentance  for  his 
faults,  and  of  hope  in  his  double  immortality.  A  poet  in 
his  heart,  as  may  be  seen  in  his  discourses  and  writings, 
he  took  from  the  sacred  poetry  of  the  Psalms  the  last 
yearnings  of  his  soul  and  the  last  utterance  of  his  lips. 
He  pronounced  in  Latin  his  last  farewell  to  this  world, 
and  yielded  up  aloud  his  soul  to  the  Creator.  A  servant 
satisfied  with  his  work,  and  dismissed  from  the  visible 
world,  which  his  labors  had  extended,  he  departed  for  the 
invisible  world,  to  take  possession  of  the  immeasurable 
expanse  of  the  infinite  universe. 

The  envy  and  ingratitude  of  his  age  and  of  his  king 
vanished  with  the  last  breath  of  the  great  man  whom 
they  had  made  their  victim.  His  contemporaries  seemed 
anxious  to  make  amends  to  the  dead  for  the  persecutions 
they  had  inflicted  on  the  living.  They  gave  Columbus  a 
royal  funeral.  His  body,  and  afterward  that  of  his  son, 
after  having  successively  occupied  several  monuments  in 
various  Spanish  cathedrals,  were  removed  and  buried, 
according  to  their  wishes,  in  Hispaniola,  as  conquerors  in 
the  land  they  had  won.  They  now  rest  in  Cuba.  But,  by 
a  singular  decision  of  Providence  or  an  ungrateful  caprice 
of  man,  of  all  the  lands  of  America  which  disputed  the 
honor  of  retaining  his  ashes,  not  one  retained  his  name. 

All  the  characteristics  of  the  truly  great  man  are  united 
in  Columbus.  Genius,  labor,  patience,  obscurity  of  ori 
gin,  overcome  by  energy  of  will;  mild,  but  persisting 
firmness,  resignation  toward  heaven,  struggle  against  the 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  231 

world;  long  conception  of  the  idea  in  solitude,  heroic  ex 
ecution  of  it  in  action  ;  intrepidity  and  coolness  in  storms, 
fearlessness  of  death  in  civil  strife  ;  confidence  in  the  des 
tiny,  not  of  an  individual,  but  of  the  human  race  ;  a  life 
risked  without  hesitation  or  retrospect  in  venturing  into 
the  unknown   and  phantom-peopled  ocean,  1500  leagues 
across,  and  on  which  the  first  step  no  more  allowed  of  sec 
ond  thoughts  than  Caesar's  passage  of  the  Rubicon  ! — un 
tiring  study,  knowledge  as  extensive  as  the  science  of  his 
day,  skillful  but  honorable  management  of  courts  to  per 
suade  them  to  truth ;  propriety  of  demeanor,  nobleness  and 
dignity  in  outward  bearing,  which  affords  proof  of  great 
ness   of  mind,   and   attracts   eyes   and  hearts;  language 
adapted  to  the  grandeur  of  his  thoughts  ;  eloquence  which 
could  convince  kings,  and  quell  the  mutiny  of  his  crews  ; 
a  natural  poetry  of  style,  which  placed  his  narrative  on  a 
par  with  the  wonders  of  his  discoveries  and  the  marvels 
of  nature  ;  an  immense,  ardent,  and  enduring  love  for  the 
human  race,  piercing  even  into  that   distant  future  in 
which  humanity  forgets  those  that  do  it  service  ;  legisla 
tive  wisdom  and  philosophic  mildness  in  the  government 
of  his  colonies  ;  paternal  compassion  for  those  Indians, 
infants  of  humanity,  whom  he  wished  to  give  over  to  the 
guardianship  —  not  to  the  tyranny  and   oppression — of 
the  Old  World ;  forgetfulness  of  injury,  and  magnanimous 
forgiveness  of  his  enemies  ;  and,  lastly,  piety,  that  virtue 
which  includes  and  exalts  all  other  virtues,  when  it  ex 
ists  as  it  did  in  the  mind  of  Columbus — the  constant  pres 
ence  of  God  in  the  soul,  of  justice  in  the  conscience,  of 
mercy  in  the  heart,  of  gratitude  in  success,  of  resignation 
in  reverses,  of  worship  always  and  every  where. 

Such  was  the  man.  We  know  of  none  more  perfect. 
He  contained  several  impersonations  within  himself.  He 
was  worthy  to  represent  the  ancient  world  before  that  un 
known  continent  on  which  he  was  the  first  to  set  foot,  and 
to  carry  to  these  men  of  a  new  race  all  the  virtues,  without 
any  of  the  vices,  of  the  elder  hemisphere.  So  great  was 


232  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS. 

his  influence  on  the  destiny  of  the  earth,  that  none  more 
than  he  ever  deserved  the  name  of  a  Civilizer. 

His  influence  on  civilization  was  immeasurable.  He 
completed  the  world  ;  he  realized  the  physical  unity  of 
the  globe.  He  advanced,  far  beyond  all  that  had  been 
done  before  his  time,  the  work  of  God  —  the  SPIRITUAL 
UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE.  This  work,  in  which  Colum 
bus  had  so  largely  assisted,  was  indeed  too  great  to  be 
worthily  rewarded  even  by  affixing  his  name  to  the  fourth 
continent.  America  bears  not  that  name  ;  but  the  human 
race,  drawn  together  and  cemented  by  him,  will  spread 
his  renown  over  the  face  of  the  whole  earth. 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY, 

THE    POTTER. 

A.D.  1510-1589. 

"  THE  number  of  my  years  hath  given  me  courage  to 
tell  you  that,  a  short  time  since,  I  was  considering  the  color 
of  my  beard,  which  caused  me  to  reflect  on  the  few  days 
still  remaining  before  my  race  should  end  ;  and  this  made 
me  admire  the  lilies  and  corn  in  the  fields,  and  several 
sorts  of  plants,  which  change  their  green  color  to  white 
when  they  are  about  to  bear  fruit.  Thus,  also,  certain 
trees  burst  into  flower  when  they  feel  that  their  natural 
vegetative  vigor  is  like  to  cease.  .  .  .  Wherefore,  it  is  a 
just  and  reasonable  thing  that  each  should  endeavor  to 

multiply  the  talent  which  he  hath  received  from  God 

Therefore  have  I  endeavored  to  bring  to  light  those  things 
which  it  hath  pleased  God  to  make  me  understand,  to  the 
profit  of  posterity." 

In  these  terms  does  a  poor  potter,  nearly  ninety  years 
of  age,  express  himself  in  the  preface  to  his  writings  and 
conversations  with  himself,  in  which  he  treats  of  his  trade, 
his  afflictions,  and  his  life,  for  his  own  amusement  and  for 
the  encouragement  of  others.  The  passage  might  be  taken 
for  an  extract  from  the  confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  or  oi 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  or  of  a  writer  and  a  philosopher 
great  both  in  ideas  and  style.  This  writer,  this  philoso 
pher,  is  but  a  workman  who  has  grown  old  between  the 
trowel  and  the  furnace,  with  his  hands  still  soiled  by  the 
clay  that  he  moulded  all  his  days.  We  never  felt  more 
strongly  than  in  studying  the  life  of  this  man  that  great 
ness  does  not  depend  upon  position,  but  is  a  gift  of  nature. 

The  potter  was  Bernard  de  Palissy.     While  young,  he 


234  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

kneaded  marl  and  burned  bricks  at  his  father's  kiln  in  the 
village  of  Chapelle-Biron,  in  Perigord.  But  the  youth  was 
moved  by  that  desire  of  doing  well  whatever  we  do,  which 
leads  the  reflecting  man  to  surpass  what  he  sees  done  by 
others,  and  which,  at  length,  gives  him  the  key  to  all  dis 
coveries  in  intellectual  or  manual  labor.  While  mould 
ing  his  coarse  clay,  and  gazing  on  the  brick  that  had  be 
come  hard  and  red  in  the  fire  of  the  furnace,  he  was  think 
ing  of  the  forms,  the  reliefs,  the  handles,  the  ornaments, 
and  the  figures  of  the  vases,  which  already  presented 
themselves  to  his  imagination,  and  of  the  glazes  and  ena 
mels  with  which  he  was  one  day  to  cover  his  master 
pieces  of  earthenware. 

Pottery — that  is  to  say,  the  business  of  tempering,  mould 
ing,  and  baking  earth,  either  in  the  sun  or  in  the  fire — is 
one  of  the  earliest  of  human  occupations.  The  mud,  which 
retains  the  foot-mark,  offers  itself  naturally  as  an  element 
ready  either  for  the  sport  or  utility  of  the  first  inhabitants 
of  the  earth.  Vases  and  cups,  to  hold  the  liquids  neces 
sary  to  quench  thirst,  were  used  by  man  as  a  substitute 
for  the  hollow  of  the  hand,  as  soon  as  he  had  left  off  drink 
ing  at  the  pool  like  the  beasts  of  the  field.  An  improved 
kind  of  earthenware,  fit  for  cooking  victuals,  must  have 
closely  followed  the  invention  of  fire.  From  the  first  clay 
jar  or  earthen  cup  to  the  colored  glaze  of  the  Etruscan 
vases,  the  enameled  porcelain  of  China  or  Japan,  or  the 
indelible  pictures  fixed  by  fire  on  the  surface  of  the  fine 
ware  of  Sevres,  we  may  trace  each  step  of  the  immense 
scale  which  separates  the  rude  handicraft  from  the  ex 
quisite  art. 

The  earliest  records  of  antiquity  bear  witness  that  this 
occupation  employed  numberless  hands.  Babel  was  a 
mountain  of  bricks.  Moses  delivered  his  people  from  the 
slavery  of  Egypt  because  the  Hebrews,  who  were  con 
demned  to  this  servile  labor,  were  not  furnished  with  the 
straw  required  to  bind  the  bricks  they  were  making  for 
the  pyramids.  The  Greeks — whose  religious  feeling  was 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  235 

entirely  based  upon  the  adoration  of  the  beautiful,  in  every 
line  and  shape,  and  of  whom  the  type  was  Plato,  the  wor 
shiper  of  the  ideal — esteemed  so  highly  the  apparently 
vulgar  art  of  the  potter,  that  they  erected  statues  and 
struck  medals  in  honor  of  the  first  makers  of  earthenware. 
Corcebus  of  Athens,  the  inventor  of  pottery  ;  Dibutades  of 
Sicyon,  the  inventor  of  earthenware  baked  in  the  fire  ;  and 
Talus,  the  inventor  of  the  wheel  by  which  round  vases  are 
fashioned,  owe  their  fame  to  this  craft.  Phidias  himself, 
the  divine  sculptor,  gave  designs  for  vases  to  the  potters 
of  his  day. 

Greece  has  doubtless  produced  master-pieces  in  this  ma 
terial  ;  but  the  lapse  of  ages,  social  convulsions,  invasions, 
and  fires,  have  destroyed  them.  They  have  returned  to 
the  earth  from  which  they  sprung.  As  a  general  rule,  the 
only  specimens  of  their  pottery  which  have  reached  us 
have  been  found  in  tombs.  Sepulchres  have  always  been 
the  safest  of  depositories. 

The  Etruscans — the  inhabitants  of  Etruria,  now  called 
Tuscany — carried  this  art  to  such  perfection,  and  made 
such  myriads  of  vases,  cups,  amphorss,  and  cinereal  urns, 
that  they  are  found  by  thousands  wherever  they  have  been 
discovered  ;  and  one  might  almost  think  that  this  nation, 
which  supplied  all  the  world  with  earthenware,  was  a 
people  of  potters. 

The  Romans  imitated  without  equaling  them.  There 
is  still  to  be  seen  at  one  of  the  gates  of  Rome  an  artificial 
mound,  called  Monte  Testaccio,  formed  entirely  of  the 
fragments  of  Roman  pottery,  which  had  been  deposited  in 
heaps  upon  this  spot — a  witness  to  the  future  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  their  capital  and  the  eternity  of  its  duration. 

On  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  art  of  tempering, 
moulding,  ornamenting,  sculpturing,  varnishing,  and  paint 
ing  earthenware  disappeared  with  the  other  arts.  Chris 
tianity,  at  its  commencement,  opposed  all  these,  as  being 
too  intimately  allied  with  idolatry.  Temples,  statues, 
tombs,  urns,  vases,  and  pagan  vessels — it  proscribed  all, 


23G  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

that  it  might  model  the  world  anew.  The  Greeks  of  By 
zantium  alone  preserved  some  of  the  traditional  processes 
of  this  art  of  their  fathers,  and  exercised  them  at  Damas 
cus,  the  greatest  manufacturing  city  of  the  Levant,  and 
of  which  the  glazed  and  painted  vases  were  spread  over 
all  the  world  as  articles  of  regal  luxury.  These  wares 
were,  however,  clumsy  and  tasteless;  they  evinced  the 
decay  of  an  art  that  was  lost. 

But  while  the  West  was  successively  creating,  losing, 
and  endeavoring  to  recover  the  art  of  pottery,  the  ancient 
nations  of  the  extreme  East  had  been,  unknown  to  us,  for 
thousands  of  years,  making  that  painted,  glazed,  and  semi- 
transparent  porcelain  which  has  been  for  ages  the  delight 
of  the  Chinese  and  Japanese.  They  had  reached  such  a 
perfection  of  material,  form,  and  color,  that  even  to  this 
day  our  imitations  can  hardly  compete  with  them ;  and 
if  artistic  civilization  were  to  be  measured  by  superiority 
in  the  manufacture  of  earthenware,  the  West  must  bow 
before  the  East.  Even  the  most  ancient  annals  of  China 
mention  as  unknown  the  date  of  the  invention  of  porce 
lain.  There  is  a  mysterious  antiquity  in  a  tea-cup,  or  a 
little  statuette  of  a  god  or  goddess  of  the  Celestial  Empire. 
The  first  Arabian  geographers  who  mention  China,  which 
was  but  indistinctly  known  one  thousand  years  ago  to  these 
navigators  of  the  Eastern  seas,  relate  that  in  the  towns  of 
this  wonderful  empire  "there  is  no  art  more  esteemed 
than  that  of  the  potter,  and  the  designers  of  landscapes 
on  porcelain.  They  fill  the  markets  of  India,  Persia,  and 
Arabia  with  transparent  earthen  vases  of  incomparable 
beauty  ;  and  several  millions  of  men  have,  from  time  im 
memorial,  had  no  other  occupation  or  glory  than  the  man 
ufacture  of  porcelain.  Japan  even  surpasses  the  Chinese 
in  a  varnish  which  is  called  Lake.  This  varnish  exudes 
from  a  tree,  the  bark  of  which  is  split  in  spring,  and  of 
which  the  sap  is  collected  in  small  shells.  It  is  afterward 
dried  on  cotton  sieves,  pressed  between  heavy  stones,  and 
mixed  with  purified  oil :  it  is  then  rubbed  and  polished 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  237 

until  it  becomes  as  brilliant  as  crystal.  On  this  varnish, 
when  solid,  gold  figures  or  flowers  are  painted,  and  the 
picture  is  then  covered  with  another  transparent  and  fire 
proof  coating." 

The  material  of  which  these  vases  are  moulded  is  as 
great  a  proof  of  ingenuity  and  perseverance  as  their  forms, 
and  the  figures,  sculptures,  and  paintings  with  which  they 
are  ornamented  are  evidences  of  taste,  imagination,  and 
mental  and  manual  dexterity.     The  handles  of  the  cups 
are  sometimes  branches  of  trees  with  their  leaves,  and 
sometimes  reptiles,  like  living  caryatides,  with  their  paws 
holding  the  rim,  and  their  tails  winding  round  the  foot  of 
the  vase.     Here  we  have  a  cat  and  her  kitten,  crouched 
on  a  hollow  rock,  whose  cavity  holds  water  or  liquid  per 
fume.     There  we  have  a  beggar  who  seems  to  ask  alms, 
and  to  receive  the  drop  of  tea  which  would  fall  from  the 
edge  of  the  cup  into  the  drinker's  hand ;  elsewhere  we 
have  poultry  perched  on  a  tree  in  blossom  ;  a  sitting  bird, 
from  whose  beak  the  liquid  flows ;   a  woman  with  her 
children  round  her,  in  the  midst  of  fruit  and  flowers  ;  a 
monkey  playing  with  an  orange,  which  is  falling  from  his 
hand ;  a  cup  like  an  opening  bud,  with  the  stalk  for  a 
handle  ;  an  old  man,  like  a  Tantalus,  with  his  head  stretch 
ing  over  the  edge  of  the  cup,  from  which  the  water  flows 
without  wetting  his  lips  ;  another,  like  an  expanded  lotus 
flower,  buoyed  up  by  its  leaves  on  the  water,  or  a  bunch 
of  grapes  gnawed  by  a  little  squirrel,  with  a  thousand  other 
decorative  conceits,  that  make  a  china-cupboard  a  com 
plete  museum  of  art  and  imagination,  in  which  all  the 
caprices   of  nature   are   reproduced  in  porcelain.      How 
many  ages  must  it  have  required  for  a  trade,  apparently 
so  vulgar  "to  become  the  taste  and  the  principal  occupa 
tion  of  so  many  millions  ! 

But  these  wonders  of  the  extreme  East  were  still  un 
known  in  the  West  in  the  fourteenth  century.  Glazed 
earthenware  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the  pavement 
of  the  Alhambra  of  Granada,  and  in  the  mosques  of  the 


238  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

Moors  in  Spain.  The  art  was  introduced  into  Europe 
through  Arabia.  It  was  not  until  a  century  later  that  the 
famous  Luca  della  Robbia,  the  Palissy  of  Tuscany,  became 
celebrated  for  enameled  earthenware  in  Italy.  A  moulder 
of  clay,  he  succeeded,  after  persevering  labor,  in  covering 
and  varnishing  his  works  with  a  white  glaze,  unaffected 
by  what  destroys  the  surface  of  unglazed  earthenware. 
The  manufacturing  cities  of  Florence  and  of  Faenza,  from 
which  last  is  derived  the  French  word  "  Faience"  owed 
to  him  their  trade  and  their  celebrity.  Painting  soon  took 
possession  of  his  enamel  as  of  an  imperishable  canvas, 
and  the  pictures  of  the  great  masters  were  copied,  fired, 
and  made  everlasting,  on  these  disks  of  porcelain.  Sculp 
ture  endeavored  to  rival  its  sister  art,  and  grouped  its 
statuettes  and  bas-reliefs  round  the  vases,  cups,  ewers,  and 
plates  of  baked  earthenware. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  earthenware  manufacture 
when  Bernard  de  Palissy  was  making  tiles,  bricks,  and 
earthen  bottles,  to  hold  water,  wine,  and  oil.  But  how 
much  of  these  artistic  secrets  could  be  known  to  the  poor 
ignorant  workman,  without  models,  without  books,  and 
without  instructors,  in  a  village  where  the  peasants  were 
as  rough  as  himself,  amid  the  marshes  and  woods  of  the 
Saintonge  1  Yet  artistic  taste,  which  always,  in  the  first 
instance,  connects  itself  with  religious  worship,  as  if  it 
were  anxious  to  return  to  its  source  and  exalt  itself  by  its 
association  with  things  divine,  dawned  on  the  mind  of  the 
young  potter  from  the  splendid  Gothic  designs  of  the  col 
ored  windows  of  his  cathedral.  He  knew  that  this  glass, 
which  allowed  the  sunbeams  to  pass  into  the  church,  and 
exhibited  the  wonderful  scenes  of  the  Bible  and  the  Gos- 
ple,  consisted  only  of  earth  and  sand  most  carefully  tem 
pered  by  the  hand  of  man,  purified  and  hardened  in  the 
fire,  and  made  transparent  as  rock-crystal  by  processes 
resembling  magic.  From  that  day,  the  earth  he  loved  so 
well  seemed  to  him  mere  mud :  his  imagination  put  be 
fore  him  a  wonder  to  imitate  and  other  wonders  to  dis- 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  239 

cover.  He  quitted  his  father's  kiln,  and  apprenticed  him 
self  to  some  workmen  in  glass,  who  at  that  time  ranked 
almost  with  the  nobility,  on  account  of  the  science  and 
dignity  of  their  art. 

The  glass  manufacture  then  included,  not  only  melting 
the  glass,  but  cutting  it  into  the  panes  necessary  to  fit  the 
spaces  between  the  mullions  of  the  cathredal  or  chapel 
windows,  and  covering  these  panes  with  paintings  repre 
senting  landscapes,  animals,  figures,  and  the  mysteries  of 
the  Christian  heaven.  The  glass  windows  were  a  poetic 
al  lesson-book  for  the  people  that  frequented  the  church 
es.  They  brought  home  to  the  minds  of  the  peasantry  the 
creation  of  the  world,  the  delights  of  the  terrestrial  para 
dise,  with  its  rivers,  trees,  lions,  lambs,  and  birds,  the  com 
panions  of  men  ;  the  miracles  of  revealed  religion,  the  suf 
ferings  of  the  Crucifixion,  the  martyrdoms  in  the  Circus,  the 
resurrection  and  the  assumption  of  the  victims  of  the  new 

faith then  the  Heavens  open,  with  the  Father  eternal, 

the  Son,  the  Word  and  the  mercy  of  God,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  under  the  form  of  a  dove  flying  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  to  denote  the  unity  of  the  Trinity,  and  giving  forth 
rays  from  its  glowing  breast,  to  spread  every  where  light 
and  love.  Lastly,  the  souls  of  the  blessed,  represented  by 
numberless  winged  faces,  scattered  about  like  the  stars  in 
the  sky,  and  rejoicing  in  the  divine  radiance  in  the  dwell 
ing  of  the  Father. 

Bernard  de  Palissy,  to  render  himself  better  fitted  for 
the  art  which  he  had  adopted,  spent  the  hours  of  the 
night,  and  what  money  he  could  spare  from  his  wages,  to 
obtain  all  the  scientific  knowledge  and  manual  skill  relat 
ing  to  his  trade.  His  mind,  both  ardent  and  persevering, 
became  trained  as  well  as  his  hand.  He  soon  acquired 
geometry,  drawing,  painting,  and  the  elementary  part  of 
sculpture.  The  search  for  subjects  for  design  soon  led 
him  to  study  sacred  and  profane  literature,  as  he  turned 
over  the  pages  of  books  to  find  scenes,  descriptions,  and 
allegories .  He  thus  became  unwittingly  a  man  of  letters,  a 


240  BERNARD  DE  PALiSSY. 

poet,  a  theologian,  a  philosopher,  and  a  politician.  While 
studying  a  single  business,  with  the  view  of  extending  his 
knowledge  to  its  utmost  limits,  he  learned  a  little  of  ev 
ery  thing.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  real  genius  always 
to  aspire  to  universality  :  the  limits  which  are  said  to  sep 
arate  one  science  from  another  are  simply  the  limits  of 
our  knowledge.  Genius  always  overleaps  them  to  reach 
the  infinite,  the  true  field  of  human  thought.  In  the  in 
finite,  all  things  are  united  completely  and  harmoniously 
into  one  great  whole.  The  universe  is  but  infinite  art, 
which  sketches,  carves,  draws,  paints,  writes,  and  sings 
the  revelation  of  the  Beautiful,  which  is  God.  Thus  it 
was  understood  by  Palissy.  It  will  be  seen  that,  toward 
the  close  of  his  life,  he  moulded  thoughts  in  his  mind,  just 
as,  when  young,  he  moulded  clay  in  his  hands ;  and  that 
his  style,  founded  on  nature,  was  as  strongly  marked  and 
colored,  as  vigorous  and  graceful,  as  his  groups  or  his  paint 
ings.  While  studying  poetry,  he  had  become  a  poet  and 
a  writer. 

There  is  a  vague  instinct  which  leads  the  child  of  ge 
nius,  and  the  workman  who  aims  at  perfection,  to  leave 
his  native  country,  and  to  travel,  in  early  life.  Each 
thinks,  no  doubt,  that  beyond  his  visual  horizon  there  lies 
a  new  moral  space,  in  which  they  shall  discover  things 
they  knew  not  before.  Change  of  place  seems  to  suit  that 
natural  restlessness  of  spirit,  ever  yearning  for  perfection  ; 
and  every  town  and  district  has  become  specially  associa 
ted  with  some  department  of  the  art,  the  industry,  or  the 
trade  of  man.  One  place  is  famous  for  its  workers  in  iron, 
another  for  its  coppersmiths  ;  the  south  is  known  for  its 
silks,  the  north  for  its  linen,  the  centre  for  its  porcelain,  the 
cast  for  its  metals,  the  west  for  its  wools,  the  Pyrenees  for 
its  crystal,  Lyons  for  its  factories.  The  climate,  the  natu 
ral  productions,  the  weather,  the  water,  the  customs  and 
habits  of  each  place,  are  peculiarly  adapted  to  some  partic 
ular  branch  of  human  industry ;  secrets  descend  from  fa 
ther  to  son ;  the  art  becomes  local,  and,  to  be  seen  in  its 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 


241 


perfection,  must  be  seen  upon  the  spot.  Thence  sprang 
the  custom  of  that  voyage  round  the  world,  or  of  that  tour 
through  France,  in  which,  from  the  time  of  Homer  and 
Pythagoras  downward,  the  mere  laborer  of  each  profession, 
before  he  begins  the  life  of  the  philosopher,  the  poet,  and 
the  workman,  goes  forth  to  see  the  world,  from  town  to 
town,  from  people  to  people,  previous  to  holding  himself 
forth  as  an  example  and  a  teacher  of  his  art. 

Bernard  de  Palissy  worked'  his  way  from  town  to  town 
until  he  reached  Tarbes,  built  on  a  table-land  facing  the 
Pyrenees,  and  in  which  glass-painting  then  flourished. 
Soon,  attracted  by  the  picturesque  scenes  which  were 
spread  before  his  eyes,  he  felt  himself  a.  painter  at  the 
sight  of  this  picture  of  nature,  and  left  for  a  time  his  glass 
and  clay  to  wander  among  the  gorges  and  cliffs  of  the 
mountains,  in  which  the  Divine  Artist  seems  to  have  sport 
ed  with  peaks  and  ravines  amid  the  grandest  and  most 
beautiful  scenes  of  nature.  If  Bernard  de  Palissy  was  a 
mere  workman  when  he  entered  the  labyrinth  of  the  Pyr 
enees,  he  left  it  a  painter  and  a  poet.  He  soon  tired  of 
the  dull  routine  of  the  work-shop  at  Tarbes,  and  traveled 
as  a  draughtsman  and  modeler  of  images  ;  thus  gaining  his 
livelihood,  and  at  the  same  time  acquiring  dexterity  of 
hand  and  enlarging  his  mind.  He  thus  passed  through  all 
the  provinces  of  France,  from  Marseilles  to  Flanders  and 
the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  His  wanderin'gs  over  the  Alps 
and  Pyrenees,  and  the  great  interest  he  took  in  the  various 
qualities  of  the  earths,  rocks,  sands,  and  waters,  on  account 
of  the  relation  they  bore  to  his  business,  had  made  him  a 
naturalist.  He  employed  his  leisure  hours  in  wandering 
over  the  woods  and  meadows  ;  in  searching  the  beds  of 
springs  ;  in  catching  the  reptiles,  beetles,  and  insects 
which  inhabit  the  marsh  among  the  rushes  and  tall  water- 
plants  ;  in  climbing  the  mountains,  and  finding  his  way  to 
the  precipitous  ravines  and  deep  caverns,  as  if  to  spy  into 
the  secrets  of  God.  The  vast  view  within  the  distant  ho 
rizon  of  the  mountain-top,  the  varying  hues  of  the  sky,  the 

VOL.  !.— L 


242  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

changes  of  the  leaf  and  of  the  greensward  of  the  mead 
ows,  made  a  pleasing  and  a  lasting  impression  on  his  sight, 
hereafter  to  be  reproduced  under  his  hand.  To  the  soli 
tary  child  of  genius,  Nature  was  both  a  teacher  and  a  store. 
He  reveled  in  the  ecstasy,  the  truth,  and  the  simplicity  of 
his  feelings  ;  and  the  want  of  an  interpreter  in  these  con 
versations  between  Palissy  and  Nature  afterward  gave  rise 
to  a  new  art. 

But  if  there  be  an  instinct  which  drives  the  workman 
from  his  home  in  his  early  youth,  there  is  another  instinct 
which  draws  him  back  when  he  has  seen  what  he  desired 
to  see.  Although  man  is  a  wandering  creature,  he  has, 
nevertheless,  like  a  tre*e,  invisible  fibres  in  his  heart  or 
memory,  which  attach  or  recall  him  to  his  birth-place. 
These  fibres  are  the  recollections,  the  attachments,  the  re 
grets,  and  the  gratitude,  which  bind  him  (as  a  branch  to 
its  stock)  to  his  family  and  country.  This  is  his  native 
soil.  There  he  remembers  his  father  and  mother,  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  the  companions  of  his  youth,  the  faces, 
voices,  and  smiles  which  he  loved  before  he  roamed  the 
world,  and  which  nothing  has  since  been  able  to  efface 
from  his  memory.  These  thoughts  of  the  workman  and 
traveler  at  last  become  a  pleasing  distemper  of  mind,  of 
which  the  only  cure  is  in  the  country  of  m&  love.  They 
draw  him  imperceptibly,  and  in  a  constantly  decreasing 
circle,  to  the  village  or  roof  of  his  birth,  which  he  at  last 
revisits  for  the  peace  of  his  mind.  This  desire  is  the  more 
difficult  to  conquer  in  proportion  as  he  who  feels  it  is  more 
sensitive.  Ideas  become  passions  in  the  breasts  of  poets 
and  artists. 

Palissy  had  brought  away,  when  he  commenced  his  tour 
through  France,  one  of  those  idols  which  recall  man  to  his 
home.  His  mind,  reflecting  and  religious,  was  not  one  of 
those  which  allow  the  first  flower  of  love  to  be  blighted 
by  the  breath  of  the  world.  He  married,  and  established 
a  family  on  a  little  property  acquired  by  persevering  labor. 
In  his  first  years  of  quiet,  his  genius  found  repose  in  this 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  243 

domestic  happiness.  The  man  who  possesses  what  he 
loves  easily  forgets  glory.  Ambition  is  the  craving  of 
emptiness  ;  a  full  heart  is  seldom  disquieted.  But  his 
children  increased  as  rapidly  as  the  date  of  the  year;  and 
the  ambition,  which  he  no  longer  felt  on  his  own  account, 
returned  for  them  and  with  them.  It  was  necessary  to 
provide  for  a  family  in  which  there  were  so  many  young 
people  sitting  at  the  table,  and  so  many  old  ones  by  the 
fireside.  His  first  attempt  to  make  this  provision  was  by 
procuring  employment  as  a  surveyor  in  measuring  land  in 
the  Saintonge,  under  the  officers  of  the  revenue,  who  came, 
in  the  king's  name,  to  mark  out  and  measure  estates  for 
the  land-tax.  This  work  did  not  take  him  away  from  the 
constant  object  of  his  study — the  earth.  While  survey 
ing,  he  tried  the  clay,  felt  the  sand,  crushed  the  stories, 
and  thought  upon  the  mixtures  and  combinations  of  in 
gredients  most  likely  to  lead  to  those  fortuitous  discover 
ies  of  material,  ground,  color,  and  glaze,  which  had  been 
the  object  of  his  thoughts  from  the  day  when  he  first 
handled  a  trowel.  A  fragment  of  earthenware  of  Luca 
della  Robbia,  which  he  had  picked  up  among  the  sweep 
ings  of  some  mansion  during  his  travels,  set  his  mind  to 
work,  as  the  fall  of  an  apple  did  Newton's  ;  or  as  the  ivy- 
branch  floating  on  the  ocean,  with  its  leaves  still  green, 
led  the  first  navigators  of  the  Atlantic,  the  companions  of 
Columbus,  to  suspect  that  land  was  near. 

Tired  of  this  lucrative,  but  temporary  and  monotonous 
employment  of  surveying,  he  returned  home  to  his  wife, 
with  a  determination  to  try  all  and  risk  all  for  her  sake 
and  the  sake  of  his  children — to  complete  his  invention, 
or  perish  in  the  attempt.  The  recital  of  his  meditations 
by  night  and  labor  by  day,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  ex 
hausting  as  the  throes  of  childbirth,  should  be  read  in  his 
own  pages,  which  are  impressed  with  all  the  fire  of  his 
love  and  all  the  strength  of  his  will : 

"Alas  !"  he  says,  in  his  book  entitled  The  Art  of  Pottery, 
"  it  is  true  that  I  had  not  much  wealth,  but  I  had  the  rep- 


244  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

utation  of  being  a  good  draughtsman,  and  I  used  to  draw 
the  plans  and  maps  for  lawsuits  and  divisions  of  property. 
I  was  pretty  well  skilled  in  the  manufacture  of  glass,  and 
only  applied  myself  to  earthenware  after  having  laid  by 
enough  to  live  upon  some  time  without  labor.  I  have  en 
dured  many  troubles  and  much  misery  in  this  study,  en 
cumbered  as  I  was  with  a  wife  and  children.  I  had  no 
means  of  learning  the  said  art  in  any  shop,  or  of  keeping 

any  servant  to  assist  me Know  that  twenty-five 

years  ago  I  was  shown  an  earthenware  cup,  turned  and 
enameled,  of  such  beauty,  that  from  that  time  forth  I  com 
muned  with  myself  how  I  could  discover  an  enamel ;  and 
I  began  to  search  for  enamels,  without  knowing  of  what 
materials  they  were  composed,  as  -a  man  that  gropes  his 
way  in  the  dark.  On  that  day  I  pounded  up  all  the  ma 
terials  I  could  think  of,  and,  having  pounded  and  ground 
them,  I  bought  a  quantity  of  earthen  pots,  and  breaking 
them  to  pieces,  I  covered  them  with  the  substances  I  had 
ground,  making  a  memorandum  of  the  drugs  that  I  had 
used  in  each  ;  then,  having  built  a  furnace  according  to 
my  fancy,  I  put  these  pieces  to  bake,  to  see  if  my  drugs 
would  give  any  color.  Now,  because  I  had  never  seen 
earthenware  baked,  I  never  could  succeed,  even  when  the 
mixtures  were  good,  because  sometimes  the  work  was  too 

much  heated,  and  at  other  times  not  enough So, 

being  oftentimes  thus  disappointed,  with  great  cost  and 
labor,  I  was  all  day  pounding  and  grinding  new  materials, 
and  building  new  furnaces  at  a  great  expense  in  money, 
and  much  consumption  of  wood  and  time.  .  .  . 

"  When  I  had  imprudently  spent  several  years  in  these 
attempts,  with  much  sorrow  and  sighing  because  I  could 
not  succeed  in  my  desire,  I  again  bought  several  earthen 
vessels,  and,  having  broken  them  up,  covered  three  or  four 
hundred  of  the  pieces  with  experimental  enamels,  and  car 
ried  them  to  a  pottery  distant  a  league  and  a  half  from 
my  residence,  with  a  request  to  the  potters  to  allow  me  to 
bake  these  experiments  therein. 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  245 

"  God  willed  it  that  thus,  as  I  was  beginning  to  lose 
courage,  and,  as  a  last  attempt,  had  gone  to  a  glass-house, 
having  with  me  a  man  loaded  with  more  than  three  hund 
red  different  samples,  there  was  found  one  of  these  sam 
ples  which  became  melted  within  four  hours  after  being 
in  the  furnace  ;  the  which  gave  me  such  joy,  that  I  thought 
I  had  become  another  creature,  and  believed  that  I  had 
then  discovered  the  perfection  of  white  enamel.  But  my 
thoughts  were  still  far  from  the  truth,  this  trial  being  very 
successful  in  one  point  of  view,  and  very  bad  in  another : 
successful,  in  so  far  as  it  gave  me  an  insight  into  the 
knowledge  I  have  since  attained  ;  bad,  in  that  it  was  not 
in  proper  dose  or  measure.  I  was  so  great  a  fool  in  those 
days,  that,  as  soon  as  I  had  produced  the  white,  1  set  about 
making  earthen  vessels,  although  I  had  never  learned  the 
earthenware  manufacture  ;  and,  having  spent  seven  or 
eight  months  in  constructing  these  vessels,  I  began  to  build 
a  furnace  like  a  glass-furnace,  the  which  I  built  with  un 
speakable  toil,  for  I  had  to  do  the  masonry  by  myself,  and 
to  mix  my  mortar,  and  draw  the  water  for  tempering  the 
same  ;  also  I  had  to  carry  the  bricks  on  my  own  back,  for 
that  I  had  no  means  of  keeping  a  man  to  assist  me  in  the 
said  business.  I  baked  my  ware  for  the  first  firing,  but  at 
the  second  firing  I  had  such  sorrow  and  such  work  as  no 
man  would  believe  ;  for,  instead  of  resting  from  my  past 
labors,  I  had  to  work  for  the  space  of  more  than  a  month, 
night  and  day,  to  grind  the  materials  of  which  I  had  made 
this  beautiful  white  at  the  glass-house  ;  and  when  I  had 
ground  these  materials,  I  covered  therewith  the  vessels 
that  I  had  made  ;  which  done,  I  lighted  my  furnace  at  the 
two  doors,  as  I  had  seen  the  glassmen  do  ;  but  it  was  un 
fortunate  for  me,  because,  although  I  was  six  days  and  six 
nights  at  the  furnace  without  ceasing  to  throw  wood  in  at 
the  two  mouths,  I  could  not  make  the  enamel  melt,  and  I 
was  reduced  to  despair.  Yet,  although  I  was  exhausted 
with  fatigue,  I  began  to  consider  that  in  my  enamel  there 
was  too  little  of  the  material  which  was  to  flux  the  others  ; 


246  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY 

which  seeing,  I  began  to  pound  and  grind  the  same  mate 
rial,  without,  however,  allowing  my  furnace  to  cool ;  where 
fore  I  had  double  labor,  pounding,  grinding,  and  heating 
the  said  furnace. 

"  When  I  had  thus  mixed  my  enamel,  I  was  obliged  to 
go  and  purchase  more  pots,  in  order  to  try  the  said  enamel, 
inasmuch  as  I  had  consumed  all  the  vessels  I  had  made  ; 
and  having  covered  the  pots  with  the  enamel,  I  put  them 
into  the  furnace,  still  keeping  up  the  full  heat  of  the  fire. 
But  thereupon  1  met  with  another  misfortune,  which  gave 
me  great  vexation  ;  for,  my  wood  having  run  short,  I  was 
obliged  to  burn  the  stakes  from  my  garden  fence,  which 
being  consumed,  I  had  to  burn  the  tables  and  boards  of 
my  house,  in  order  to  melt  my  second  composition.  I  was 
in  such  anguish  as  I  can  not  describe,  for  I  was  all  shrivel 
ed  and  dried  up  with  the  work  and  the  heat  of  the  furnace. 
It  was  more  than  a  month  since  I  had  had  a  dry  shirt  on. 
Then,  for  my  consolation,  my  neighbors  laughed  at  me,  and 
even  those  who  ought  to  have  helped  me  reported  about 
the  town  that  I  burned  my  flooring-boards,  and  by  such 
means  they  made  me  lose  my  credit  and  pass  for  a  fool. 

"  Others  said  that  I  sought  to  coin  false  money,  which 
was  an  evil  report  that  made  me  shake  in  my  shoes ;  and 
I  would  then  walk  through  the  streets  stooping,  like  a 
man  that  is  ashamed.  I  was  in  debt  in  several  places, 
and  had  usually  two  children  at  nurse,  without  being  able 
to  pay  the  wages.  No  person  helped  me,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  they  laughed  at  me,  saying, '  Serve  him  right  to 
die  of  hunger,  for  he  neglects  his  business.'  All  these 
news  came  to  my  ears  when  I  walked  through  the  street. 
Nevertheless,  there  remained  some  hope  which  encour 
aged  and  sustained  me,  inasmuch  as  the  last  trials  had 
turned  out  pretty  well ;  and  I  then  thought  that  I  knew 
enough  to  gain  my  livelihood  at  it,  although  I  were  very 
far  therefrom  (as  thou  shalt  know  hereafter) ;  and  think 
it  not  amiss  if  I  discourse  thereof  at  length,  in  order  that 
thou  mayest  attend  to  what  may  be  of  use  to  thee. 


BERNARD  DE  PALLSSY.  247 

"When  I  had  rested  for  some  time,  regretting  that  no 
one  had  pity  upon  me,  I  said  to  my  soul,  What  saddens 
thee,  seeing  that  thou  hast  thy  desire  ?  Work  now,  and 
shame  thy  detractors.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  my  mind 
would  say,  Thou  hast  no  means  of  pursuing  thy  object: 
how,  then,  wilt  thou  keep  thy  family,  and  buy  the  things 
necessary  for  the  four  or  five  months  that  must  pass  be 
fore  thou  canst  enjoy  the  fruits  of  thy  labor?  Now,  while 
I  was  in  such  sadness  and  hesitation  of  spirit,  hope  gave 
me  a  little  courage  ;  and,  having  thought  that  I  should  be 
far  too  long  in  making  the  whole  charge  for  the  furnace 
with  my  own  hands — in  order  to  gain  time  and  bring  out 
more  quickly  the  discovery  which  I  had  made  of  the  se 
cret  of  this  enamel — I  hired  a  common  potter,  and  gave 
him  some  drawings  for  him  to  make  vessels  from,  to  my 
order ;  and  while  he  was  doing  this,  I  worked  at  some 
medallions.  But  it  was  a  wretched  affair ;  for  I  was 
obliged  to  keep  the  said  potter  at  a  tavern  on  credit,  be 
cause  I  could  not  have  him  in  my  house.  When  we  had 
worked  for  the  space  of  six  months,  and  the  work  we  had 
got  through  was  ready  to  be  fired,  it  became  necessary  to 
build  a  furnace  and  dismiss  the  potter,  to  whom,  for  want 
of  money,  I  had  to  give  some  of  my  clothes  by  way  of 
payment. 

"  Now,  as  I  had  nothing  with  which  to  build  my  oven, 
I  set  to  work  pulling  down  the  one  that  I  had  made  after 
the  fashion  of  a  glass-furnace,  that  the  materials  might 
serve  for  the  new  one  ;  but  whereas  the  said  furnace  had 
been  so  very  hot  for  six  days  and  nights,  the  bricks  and 
mortar  thereof  had  fused  and  vitrified  in  such  manner 
that,  in  breaking  it  down,  my  fingers  were  cut  and  gash 
ed  in  so  many  places  that  I  was  obliged  to  eat  my  por 
ridge  with  my  hands  wrapped  in  a  cloth.  When  I  had 
pulled  down  the  furnace,  I  had  to  build  the  other,  which 
was  not  done  without  great  trouble  ;  and  the  more  so,  be 
cause  I  had  to  carry  the  stones  and  mortar  without  any 
assistance  or  rest. 


j  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

"  This*  done,  I  gave  the  aforesaid  work  the  first  firing, 
and  then,  by  borrowing  and  otherwise,  I  found  means  to 
procure  the  materials  for  the  enamels  to  cover  it,  as  it  had 
borne  the  first  firing  well.  But  when  I  had  bought  these 
materials,  there  remained  a  work  which  had  wellnigh 
made  me  give  up  the  ghost ;  for,  after  having  tired  my 
self  during  several  days  by  pounding  and  calcining  my 
ingredients,  I  had  to  grind  them,  without  any  assistance, 
in  a  hand-mill,  which  usually  required  two  powerful  men 
to  turn  it.  '  The  desire  which  I  felt  to  succeed  in  my  un 
dertaking  made  me  do  things  which  I  should  have  other 
wise  thought  impossible. 

"When  the  colors  were  ground,  I  covered  all  my  ves 
sels  and  medallions  with  the  enamel ;  then,  having  ar 
ranged  the  whole  of  it  in  my  furnace,  I  began  to  heat  it, 
expecting  to  make  a  fortune  of  three  or  four  hundred  li- 
vres  by  the  charge.  I  continued  the  firing  until  I  had 
some  sign  and  hope  that  my  enamels  had  melted,  and  that 
the  baking  was  going  on  well.  The  next  day,  when  I 
came  to  draw  the  charge,  having  first  extinguished  the 
fire,  my  grief  and  sadness  were  so  increased  that  I  lost  all 
command  ;  for,  although  my  enamels  were  good  and  the 
work  sound,  nevertheless  an  accident  had  happened  to  the 
furnace  which  had  spoiled  all ;  and  in  order  that  thou 
mayest  guard  against  it,  I  will  describe  it ;  also,  after  that, 
I  will  tell  thee  a  number  of  other  things^that  my  misfor 
tune  may  be  thy  benefit,  and  my  loss  thy  gain.  It  was 
because  the  mortar  with  which  I  had  cemented  my  fur 
nace  was  full  of  pebbles,  the  which,  feeling  the  heat  of 
the  fire,  split  into  several  pieces,  making  sundry  detona 
tions  and  reports  in  the  said  oven.  Now  when  the  splin 
ters  of  the  said  stones  flew  against  my  work,  the  enamel, 
which  had  already  melted  and  become  sticky,  held  these 
stones,  and  fastened  them  all  over  the  said  vases  and  me 
dallions,  which  would  otherwise  have  been  beautiful. 

u  I  was  more  vexed  than  I  could  tell  thee,  and  not  with 
out  cause,  for  my  charge  cost  me  more  than  six  score 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  349 

crowns.  I  had  borrowed  the  wood  and  the  materials,  as 
I  also  had  a  part  of  my  household  necessaries,  while  I  was 
doing  this  work.  I  had  kept  oft'  my  creditors  with  the 
hope  of  payment  from  the  money  to  arise  from  the  sale  of 
the  goods,  wherefore  several  of  them  came  in  the  morn 
ing  when  I  was  going  to  take  the  goods  out  of  the  oven, 
thereby  redoubling  my  vexation,  because  in  taking  out  the 
work  I  gained  nothing  but  shame  and  confusion ;  for  ev 
ery  article  was  sprinkled  with  little  bits  of  flint,  which 
were  so  strongly  fastened  round  the  vessels,  and  stuck  in 
by  the  enamel,  that  when  I  rubbed  my  hand  over  it,  the 
said  flints  cut  like  razors  ;  and  although  the  work  was  in 
this  manner  spoiled,  yet  some  desired  to  purchase  it  at  a 
low  price.  But  because  this  would  have  been  a  disgrace 
and  cheapening  of  my  credit,  I  completely  destroyed  the 
whole  of  the  said  articles,  and  went  to  bed  for  very  sad 
ness,  seeing  that  I  had  no  means  of  supporting  my  fam 
ily.  I  met  with  nothing  but  reproaches  at  home  ;  in 
stead  of  consolation,  I  found  curses.  My  neighbors,  who 
had  heard  of  the  business,  said  I  was  a  madman,  and  that 
I  might  have  received  more  than  eight  francs  for  what  I 
had  broken.  And  all  these  remarks  were  added  to  my 
troubles. 

"  When  .1  had  lain  some  time  in  bed,  and  had  consider 
ed  with  myself  that,  if  a  man  falleth  into  a  ditch,  it  is  his 
duty  to  try  to  get  out  of  it ;  such  being  my  case,  I  betook 
myself  to  painting,  and  by  several  means  was  at  pains  to 
earn  a  little  money ;  then  I  said  to  myself  that  all  my 
losses  and  risks  were  past,  and  that  there  was  no  longer 
any  thing  to  prevent  my  producing  good  articles  :  so  I  set 
to  work,  as  before,  at  the  former  art. 

"  I  had  a  great  number  of  earthen  crocks  made  by  cer 
tain  potters  to  inclose  my  vases  when  I  put  them  into  the 
oven  :  the  idea  proved  a  good  one,  and  I  have  adhered  to 
it  up  to  the  present  time.  But  I  was  such  a  novice  that 
I  could  not  distinguish  between  too  much  and  too  little  fir 
ing  :  when  I  had  learned  to  guard  against  one  danger,  an- 

L2 


250  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

other  presented  itself,  which  I  should  never  have  thought 
of.  At  length  I  found  out  how  V>  cover  vessels  with  di 
vers  enamels  mixed  like  jasper :  this  supported  me  for 
some  time.  But  when  I  had  discovered  the  means  of 
making  rustic  pieces,  I  was  more  troubled  and  confound 
ed  than  before  ;  for,  having  made  a  certain  number  of 
basins,  and  fired  them,  some  of  my  enamels  turned  out 
beautiful  and  well  fused,  others  badly  fused,  and  others 
burnt,  because  they  were  composed  of  various  materials 
which  were  fusible  at  different  heats  :  the  green  of  the 
lizards  was  burnt  before  the  color  of  the  serpents  was 
melted  ;  also  the  color  of  the  serpents,  tortoises,  cray-fish, 
turtles,  and  crabs  was  melted  before  the  white  had  ac 
quired  any  beauty. 

"  All  these  defects  caused  me  so  much  labor  and  sad 
ness  of  spirit,  that,  before  I  could  make  my  enamels  fusi 
ble  at  the  same  degree  of  heat,  I  thought  I  should  have 
passed  even  the  doors  of  the  grave  ;  for,  from  working  at 
such  matters,  in  the  space  of  more  than  ten  years  I  had 
so  fallen  away  in  my  person  that  there  was  no  longer  any 
form  or  appearance  of  calf  to  my  legs  or  roundness  in  my 
arms,  insomuch  that  my  legs  were  all  one  thickness,  in 
such  manner  that,  as  soon  as  I  began  to  walk,  the  strings 
with  which  I  fastened  the  bottom  of  my  hose  dropped 
about  my  heels,  together  with  my  stockings.  I  frequent 
ly  used  to  walk  in  the  meadow  of  Xaintes,  considering 
my  vexation  and  afflictions ;  and,  above  all,  that  I  could 
meet  with  no  peace  in  my  own  house,  or  do  any  thing 
that  was  thought  right.  I  was  despised  and  scorned  by 
all.  Nevertheless,  I  always  contrived  to  make  some  ware 
of  divers  colors  which  afforded  me  some  sort  of  a  living. 
The  hope  which  supported  me  gave  me  such  a  manly 
courage  for  my  work,  that  oftentimes,  to  entertain  persons 
who  came  to  see  rne,  I  would  endeavor  to  laugh,  although 
within  me  I  felt  very  sad.  .  .  . 

"  I  was  all  night  at  the  mercy  of  the  wind  and  rain, 
without  having  any  succor,  help,  or  consolation,  unless 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  251 

from  the  owls  screeching  on  one  side,  and  the  dogs  howl 
ing  on  the  other.  Sometimes  there  arose  storms  and  tem 
pests,  which  blew  in  such  manner  up  and  down  my  fur 
naces  that  I  was  obliged  to  leave  them  altogether,  with 
loss  of  my  labor.  And  it  has  happened  to  me  several 
times,  that,  having  left  my  work,  and  having  nothing  dry 
about  me,  on  account  of  the  rain  which  had  fallen,  I  would 
go  staggering  about  without  a  light,  arid  tumbling  from 
side  to  side,  like  one  drunk  with  wine,  full  of  great  sor 
row,  inasmuch  as,  having  been  long  at  work,  1  saw  my  la 
bor  lost.  Now,  going  to  bed  thus  dirty  and  wet,  I  found 
in  my  room  a  persecution  worse  than  the  first,  which  now 
makes  me  wonder  that  I  did  not  die  of  vexation." 

Science  and  art — which  must  be  overcome  by  the  pa 
tience  and  industry  of  man — at  length,  in  his  advanced 
age,  yielded  him  the  victory.  His  renown  spread  with 
his  works  ;  and  the  price  that  he  received  for  his  enamel 
ed  earthenware — his  sculpture  in  clay — raised  his  house 
and  his  family  from  their  misery.  Glory  and  wealth  vis 
ited  together,  although  late,  his  furnaces.  His  produc 
tions -rough  at  first,  and  imperfect,  but  in  which  we  may 

see  the  rising  vigor  of  a  new  art,  born  of  itself,  and  not 
trammeled  by  traditions — soon  adorned  mansions  and  pala 
ces.  Paris — to  which  Catharine  de'  Medici  had  called  the 
genius,  the  arts,  and  the  ideas  of  Italy — attracted  him,  as 
it  had  attracted  the  great  sculptors  of  the  age — Jean  Cous 
in,  Germain  Pilon,  and  Jean  Goujon,  the  heirs  of  Raffaelle 
and  Michael  Angelo.  Great  men  received  him  ;  little 
men  envied  him.  The  Marshal  de  Montmorency  became 
his  patron,  and  Catharine  dc'  Medici  gave  him  a  site  for 
his  furnaces  on  a  portion  of  the  ground  now  occupied  by 
the  palace  of  the  Tuileries.  She  used  to  visit  him  at  his 
work,  like  the  princes  of  her  family  at  Florence,  who  spent 
much  of  their  time  in  the  studios  and  society  of  artists — 
those  princes  of  nature,  of  labor,  and  of  genius. 

It  was  at  a  happy  and  honored  period  of  his  life  that  he 
made  his  numberless  master-pieces  of  porcelain  in  relief, 


252  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

and  dishes  ornamented  with  figures,  beasts,  reptiles,  in 
sects,  beetles,  plants,  and  flowers;  which,  after  having 
been  dug  up  at  the  end  of  three  centuries  from  the  burial- 
places  in  the  mansions  of  the  rich,  now  make  their  ap 
pearance,  and  sell  for  their  weight  in  gold,  as  treasures 
of  art,  full  of  grace,  beauty,  and  simplicity,  to  take  their 
places  in  the  museums  of  palaces  and  in  the  cabinets  of 
the  wealthy,  who  do  honor  to  their  riches  by  making  their 
houses  the  repositories  of  art. 

One  room  in  the  Louvre  is  almost  entirely  devoted  to 
the  delicate  wonders  of  Palissy.  The  neighborhood  of  the 
paintings  of  Raffaelle  and  of  the  marbles  of  Michael  An- 
gelo  does  not  eclipse  the  glory  of  the  potter.  The  loveli 
ness  of  simplicity  and  truth  induces  us  to  linger  by  these 
sculptured  plates,  in  which  adders  in  high  relief,  with  their 
scaly  folds,  make  our  fingers  creep,  attractive  by  their  brill 
iancy,  and  repulsive  by  their  truthfulness.  Beside  the 
sleeping  snake,  with  its  neck  bent  down  to  rest  its  head 
upon  the  folds  of  its  tail,  we  see  the  black  cray-fish,  the 
spider  of  the  waters,  stretching  its  long  claws  as  if  to  gripe 
the  rocks,  and  shrink  into  their  crevices.  Beside  it,  the 
silver  fish,  with  open  fins,  seem  to  spring  forward  spon 
taneously,  darting  across  the  rushes  with  the  slight  tremor 
of  their  tails,  the  helm  of  the  living  ship.  The  shell,  with 
its  channeled  volutes,  like  a  petrifaction  of  animal  life  or 
half-animated  stone,  cleaves  to  the  bottom  of  the  water, 
as  if  to  close  its  solitary  dwelling  against  its  foes.  The 
frog  gathers  in  its  elastic  limbs,  its  greenish  hue  render 
ing  it  scarcely  perceptible  among  the  plants  at  the  edge 
of  the  brook :  its  great  eyes  are  open,  and  its  head  erect ; 
and  it  seems  ready  to  bound  away  from  the  snake.  On 
the  edge  of  the  plate,  the  young  lizards,  with  their  feet 
spread  apart  and  their  long  tails,  winding  to  and  fro  like 
their  path  through  the  grass,  turn  their  heads  as  if  to  lis 
ten  to  the  chafing  of  the  herbage  or  the  rolling  of  the  travel. 

o  d  o  o 

The  edges  and  bottom  of  the  water  are  fringed  with  dank 
mosses,  or  covered  with  the  broad  leaves  of  the  plants, 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  353 

flattened  and  bent  down  to  the  surface  by  the  dew-drops 
gleaming  like  diamonds  on  their  faces.  It  is  the  sub-aque 
ous  world  of  waters,  betrayed  to  the  eye  of  man  by  hold 
ing  apart  the  leaves,  stems,  and  flags  of  the  marsh,  and 
transferred  to  clay,  as  true  in  form,  as  delicate  in  its  shades, 
as  brilliant  in  its  colors,  as  if  a  housewife,  washing  her 
china,  had  dipped  one  of  her  plates  in  the  stream,  and 
drawn  it  out  filled  to  the  brim  with  sand,  shells,  fragments 
of  plants,  and  aquatic  animals — the  net  of  a  fisher  emp 
tied  of  its  wet  and  quivering  toad  on  the  sand,  and  scooped 
up  in  a  china  basin  :  such  are  the  dishes  of  Palissy. 

Sometimes  he  carves  and  paints,  in  colored  groups, 
scenes  from  history  or  fable,  from  the  Bible  or  the  New 
Testament,  sometimes  the  simple  scenes  of  rural  life — 
the  nurse  giving  the  breast  and  laughing  to  the  child, 
delighted  and  satiated  with  the  living  fountain  of  life. 
Sometimes  we  have  Venus  playing  with  the  loves;  again, 
a  little  girl  has  found  a  litter  of  puppies,  and  is  taking 
them  to  exhibit  in  the  lap  of  her  pinafore,  with  their  lit 
tle  heads  peeping  out  astonished  over  the  sides  of  the 
cloth,  while  the  mother,  fondly  and  anxiously  following 
its  young,  has  playfully  seized  the  skirt  of  her  dress,  as 
she  turns  with  a  simple  smile  to  quiet  its  anxiety. 

The  master-pieces  of  Palissy,  after  he  had  become  a 
more  consummate  artist  by  seeing  great  pictures  and 
fine  sculpture  during  his  stay  in  Paris  under  the  patron 
age  of  Catharine  de'  Medici,  adorn  the  private  collections 
of  Prince  SoltikofF,  in  Paris  ;  of  Baron  Rothschild,  in 
London  ;  of  M.  Sauvageot ;  M.  Rallier ;  and,  lastly,  of 
M.  Sellieres,  who  has  devoted  himself  to  the  memory  of 
this  great  artist,  and  has  made  his  house  a  museum  of  his 
works.  M.  de  Sellieres  is  the  possessor  of  the  great  basin 
of  the  elements,  in  which  clay  vies  with  the  sharpness^  of 
metal ;  of  the  battle  of  the  Centaurs  and  the  Lapithse,  an 
unrivaled  master-piece  of  the  hand  of  Palissy;  a  relief  of 
Perseus  and  Andromeda ;  another  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery ;  a  group  of  the  vintage ;  and  some  dishes  of 


254  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

open  work  festooned  with  arabesques,  whose  edges  are 
enameled,  and,  as  it  were,  perfumed  with  daisies  (margue 
rites)  in  bloom,  the  evident  device  of  some  royal  or  chiv 
alrous  attachment  of  the  artist.  It  is  pleasing  to  see  the 
disinterested  passion  for  art  in  men  of  wealth  thus  attach 
enormous  value  to  bits  of  baked  earth  merely  because 
moulded  by  the  hand  of  a  poor  workman.  Work  thus 
becomes  gold,  and  gold  becomes  art,  to  the  credit  of  the 
man  of  taste,,  and  to  the  advantage  of  the  artisan — a  mu 
tual  intercourse  between  hftairy  and  labor,  which  does 
honor  to  them  both. 

We  owe  to  M.  de  Sellieres  our  acquaintance  with  the 
collections  of  the  works  of  Palissy. 

But  his  renown,  the  favor  of  the  court,  the  popularity 
of  his  works  all  over  France,  and  even  in  Spain  and 
Italy,  his  fortune,  the  quiet  of  his  old  age,  and  the  inherit 
ance  of  his  children,  did  not  suffice  for  the  old  potter.  He 
felt  he  had  something  more  to  fashion — his  soul.  Like 
Socrates,  the  sculptor  in  marble,  it  was  within  himself 
that  he  endeavored  to  carve  his  statue,  by  his  resem 
blance  to  the  divine  model  of  all  perfection,  by  the  holi 
ness  of  his  life,  and,  if  necessary,  by  martyrdom.  As  he 
advanced  in  years,  he  thought  more  of  the  life  hereafter 
than  of  the  life  below.  From  his  infancy,  arid  during  all 
the  course  of  his  apprenticeships  and  of  his  laborious  ex 
periments,  the  love  of  God  worked  upon  him,  and  sus 
tained  and  consoled  him.  It  was  this  love  that  made  him 
enjoy  the  solitude  of  the  forest,  the  mountain-peak,  and 
the  sea-shore.  It  drove  him  into  the  wilderness  that 
he  might  contemplate  in  silence  the  forms  and  organiza 
tion  of  rocks,  the  structure  and  vegetation  of  plants,  the 
course  of  the  subterranean  streams,  the  habits  and  man 
ners  of  animals.  He  had  learned  the  wonderful  secrets 
of  "Nature,  to  the  glory  of  Him  whom  he  calls  the  great 
mechanician,  the  great  constructor,  the  great  life-giver  of 
the  universe.  This  fond  and  pious  contemplation  of  the 
things  of  this  world  necessarily  led  so  perfect  a  mind  to 


BERNARD  UE  PALISSY.  255 

guess  at  things  above.  Real  genius  always  rises,  and,  in 
rising,  it  finds  God. 

Palissy  thought  that  he  had  found  God,  and  he  lived  in 
perpetual  converse  with  the  Invisible  Spirit  which  afford 
ed  the  only  possible  explanation  of  things  visible.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  the  Reformation,  arising  from  the  abuses 
introduced  by  the  Medici  into  the  Catholic  Church,  open 
ed  the  way  for  liberty  of  thought,  while  still  desirous  of 
remaining  faithful  to  the  principal  dogma  of  Christianity, 
and  in  which  the  faith  of  authority  and  the  faith  of  reason 
fought  with  fire  and  sword,  the  one  to  retain,  and  the 
other  to  conquer  the  spiritual  world.  Palissy  and  his 
family  belonged  to  the  Reformed  religion,  and  were  sub 
jected  to  the  tyranny  of  the  dominant  persuasion.  There 
is  in  man  a  natural  tendency  to  servitude  :  when  he  can 
no  longer  serve  princes,  he  desires  to  serve  God.  It  is  not 
until  he  has  suffered  from  frequent  attacks  on  his  own  lib 
erty  that  he  learns  to  respect  that  of  others.  The  preach 
ers  of  the  new  religion  were  hunted  down  like  wild  beasts 
in  the  provinces  of  the  west  and  south,  and  driven  to  as 
sume  various  disguises  and  occupations  to  conceal  their 
real  business  as  fishers  of  men :  they  were  tracked  by 
spies,  shut  up  and  imprisoned,  dragged  along  the  roads 
and  through  the  towns  to  be  burned  at  the  stake  —  a 
gloomy  prelude  to  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

Sublime  instances  of  faith,  resignation,  devotion,  and 
courage  marked  this  persecution.  One  man,  escaping 
from  his  prison  the  night  before  his  execution,  and  find 
ing  that  he  was  not  followed  by  his  companions,  less 
skillful  or  less  fortunate  than  himself,  returned  to  pray 
with  them  until  their  last  hour.  Another,  on  the  morn 
ing  fixed  for  his  death,  woke  the  friend  who  was  sleeping 
in  the  same  cell,  and  said,  pointing  with  his  hand  to  the 
splendid  sunrise  of  summer  on  the  horizon,  "Let  us  re 
joice  !  for  if  the  aspect  of  Nature  and  the  return  of  day 
light  is  so  beautiful  on  earth,  what  will  it  be  to-morrow, 
when  we  shall  see  the  mansions  of  heaven  ?"  The  more 


256  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

fortunate  escaped  to  the  rocks  and  isles  which  skirt  the 
coast  of  Saintonge,  and  faced  the  storm  and  the  risk  of 
death  in  order  to  preach  the  Gospel  among  the  people  of 
their  religion. 

Palissy,  who  professed  their  doctrine,  describes  with 
admiration  their  zeal  and  intrepidity.  "  These  old  men," 
he  says,  ".carried  no  sword  in  their  belt ;  but,  with  mere 
ly  a  stick  in  their  hand,  they  went  alone  and  without  fear, 
according  to  the  command  of  the  Master,  '  Ye  shall  preach 
my  law,  going  and  coming,  eating  and  drinking,  lying  and 
standing,  and  seated  by  the  roadside.'  They  carried  their 
food  in  the  bosom  of  their  shirts  ;  for  there  were  very  few 
rich  men  in  our  assembly,  and  we  had  no  means  of  giving 
them  salaries."  A  Catholic  historian  of  the  day  remarks 
that  "the  painters,  clock-makers,  modelers,  jewelers,  book 
sellers,  printers,  and  others,  who,  although  in  humble 
trades,  have  still  some  exercise  for  thought,  were  the  first 
to  adopt  these  new  ideas." 

The  poetical  and  musical  mind  of  Palissy  was  particu 
larly  attracted  by  the  poetry  and  rhythm  of  the  Psalms, 
to  which  the  field-preachers  accustomed  the  ear  of  the 
people.  "While  listening  to  them,"  he  says,  "I  fancied 
myself  walking  along  the  rows  of  alders  and  ash-trees 
which  hide  the  beds  of  the  rivulets,  and  listening  to  the 
gentle  murmur  of  the  rippling  waters  as  they  flowed 
among  the  trees  ;  and,  moreover,  I  listened  to  the  song  of 
the  birds  in  the  alders,  and  then  I  remembered  me  of  the 
hundred  and  fourth  psalm,  on  the  plan  of  which  I  had  laid 
out  my  garden,  and  in  which  the  prophet  saith,  'He  send- 
eth  the  springs  into  the  valleys,  which  run  among  the 
hills,'  and  in  which  he  also  saith,  'By  them  shall  the 
fowls  of  the  heaven  have  their  habitation,  which  sing 
among  the  branches.'  It  also  seemed  to  me  as  though  I 
heard  the  voices  of  maidens  watching  their  flocks,  and 
shepherds  playing  sweetly  on  their  flutes." 

But  he  shortly  afterward  describes  the  religious  and  po 
litical  persecution  which  dispersed  these  little  congrega- 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  357 

tions.  "  I  retired  secretly  to  my  house,  that  I  might  not 
see  the  murders,  the  apostasies,  and  the  robberies  which 
took  place  in  town  and  country ;  nevertheless,  for  two  days 
that  I  remained  there,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  hell  were  let 
loose,  and  all  the  demons  had  gone  abroad  to  ravage  the 
earth.  From  my  house  I  saw  soldiers  running  through 
the  streets  swprd  in  hand,  crying,  '  "Where  are  they  ?'  .  .  . 
Even  the  children  used  to  collect  in  an  open  place,  within 
sight  of  the  house  where  I  carried  on  my  trade,  to  imitate 
the  blasphemies,  the  fights,  and  the  murders  of  the  men. 
I  often  felt  inclined  to  wreak  vengeance  on  them,  but  I 
called  to  mind  the  psalm  of  mercy." 

Palissy  returned  to  Paris  to  escape  these  sights.  He 
was  preserved  from  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  by 
Ms  talent,  and  perhaps  also  by  the  lowliness  of  his  condi 
tion  and  the  gentleness  of  his  character.  Jean  Goujon, 
the  Michael  Angelo  of  France,  more  envied,  because  more 
celebrated,  was  struck  down  on  his  platform  while  work 
ing  on  the  Caryatides  of  the  Louvre  ;  with  his  chisel  yet 
in  his  hand,  he  fell  a  corpse  at  the  foot  of  the  marble  to 
which  he  was  giving  life.  The  protection  of  the  court 
saved  Palissy.  He  occupied  his  leisure,  and  afterward  his 
captivity,  in  writing  those  things  concerning  his  art,  his 
soul,  and  his  faith,  which  appear  so  singular  as  coming 
from  the  uncultivated  pen  of  the  workman,  a*nd  from  which 
we  have  already  quoted.  His  style  improved  as  he  ad 
vanced  in  age  and  wisdom.  We  know  of  none  in  the 
French  language  so  biblical,  and  at  the  same  time,  so  mod 
ern  :  it  is  language  moulded  on  thought,  not  on  antiquity. 
The  ignorant  make  languages,  the  learned  only  adopt  them. 

The  principal  book  of  Palissy's  maturity  is  a  collection 
of  philosophical,  religious,  artistic,  and  especially  horti 
cultural  meditations,  which  he  calls  his  Garden.  The  old 
workman,  reposing  like  Solomon  in  the  setting  sun  of  a 
holy  and  laborious  life,  remembers  the  phenomena  of  na 
ture,  of  his  art,  and  of  his  soul,  which  have  left  an  im 
pression  on  his  mind  and  heart  during  his  pilgrimage  here 


258  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

below.  It  breathes  the  spirit  of  the  laborer,  the  workman, 
and  the  dreamer ;  we  feel  that  it  is  pervaded  by  the  ado 
ration  of  the  great  Creator  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The  love 
of  Nature  gives  him  the  power  of  understanding  her,  and 
his  knowledge  of  his  model  explains  to  him  the  laws,  the 
powers,  and  the  beauties  of  creation. 

He  conceives  that,  in  order  to  shelter  him  from  the  per 
secutions  and  civil  wars  of  his  day,  God  has  permitted  him 
to  make  for  himself  a  garden,  undisturbed  by  the  noise, 
the  troubles,  and  the  ravages  of  the  world — a  species  of 
Eden,  of  which  he  is  the  Adam :  he  imagines  that,  after 
having  designed,  laid  out,  and  planted  this  refuge,  he  gives 
lessons  of  wisdom,  of  piety,  and  of  happiness  to  men,  be 
neath  the  shade  of  its  groves,  and  by  the  margin  of  its 
streams.  It  was  from  within  the  walls  of  the  Bastile,  in 
which  the  Marshal  de  Montmorency,  and  his  other  patrons 
among  the  Catholic  party,  had  confined  him,  as  much  for 
his  safety  as  to  compel  his  conversion,  that  he  constructed 
these  visions  of  happiness,  liberty,  and  ease. 

As  the  Creator  himself  has  done  in  his  work,  so  Palissy 
infuses  his  mind  into  all  his  imaginary  creation,  and  he 
invites  all  living,  intelligent,  and  loving  animals  to  the 
dwelling-place  and  happiness  of  man.  He  even  includes 
plants,  which  he  describes  as  gifted  with  an  incomplete 
kind  of  understanding  and  love. 

"  On  the  walls  of  my  rocky  caverns,"  he  says,  thinking 
of  the  creatures  which  he  has  so  often  reproduced  in  his 
earthenware  and  enamels,  "  there  shall  be  various  kinds 
of  herbs  and  mosses  portrayed,  as,  for  instance,  Scolopen- 
dras,  the  Hair  of  Venus,  Adianthus,  and  other  species  of 
plants  ;  and  below  these  herbs  and  mosses  there  shall  be 
numbers  of  lizards  and  insects  crawling  along  the  rocks> 
some  climbing  up,  some  running  across,  and  others  leaping 
down,  showing  their  divers  movements,  attitudes,  and 
droll  contortions  ;  and  all  these  animals  shall  be  carved 
and  colored  so  like  nature,  that  other  insects,  lizards,  and 
real  snakes  shall  come  to  look  at  them,  even  as  thou  seest 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  259 

that  in  my  work-shop  there  is  a  figure  of  a  dog,  which 
several  dogs  have  barked  at  as  though  it  were  a  living 
one  ;  and  from  the  rock  shall  trickle  several  streamlets, 
which  shall  be  received  in  a  basin,  in  which  there  shall 
be  real  fish,  frogs,  and  tortoises  ;  and  above  this  grotto, 
which  shall  be  open  to  the  sky,  I  will  plant,  after  the 
manner  of  a  cornice,  a  great  number  of  hawthorns  and 
other  shrubs  to  feed  the  birds,  which  same  hawthorns  and 
other  shrubs  shall  cause  the  persons  who  walk  in  these 
alleys  to  have  usually  the  pleasure  of  the  various  songs 
which  the  birds  on  these  shrubs  shall  sing.  The  first 
cause  for  this  will  be  the  sun,  which  will  throw  its  rays 
morning  and  evening  upon  the  shrubs  ;  and  the  second, 
that  the  little  birds  will  generally  find  food  upon  the 
boughs.  To  accustom  them  the  better  to  this  garden,  I 
would  throw  upon  the  ground  in  winter  grains  of  various 
kinds  of  seed,  that  they  might  find  food  when  the  season 
allows  the  trees  to  bear  no  fruit. 

"  And  those  who  will  walk  along  these  galleries,  and 
lean  upon  the  rail  to  solace  themselves,  will  have  the 
shrubs  and  singing-birds  overhead  ;  and,  if  they  desire  to 
behold  the  beauty  of  the  garden,  and  what  is  going  on 
therein,  they  will  catch  the  scent  of  violets,  marjoram,  and 
basil,  and  other  kinds  of  herbs,  sheltered  by  the  rocks  from 
the  cold  winds  of  the  north  and  west.  These  mountains, 
sloping  to  the  south  and  the  east,  and  heated  all  day  by 
the  sun,  will  give  out  by  night  their  warmth  to  these 
plants,  herbs,  and  trees,  and  the  fruits  will  therefore  be 
sweeter  and  better  flavored.  .  .  .  Moreover,  those  which 
require  moisture  will  be  planted  along  the  brooks  which 
run  from  the  rocks  and  mountains,  and  these  little  brooks 
shall  in  their  course  form  a  large  stream,  from  which  some 
offsets  shall  make  islets  fit  for  the  growth  of  water-plants  ; 
and  in  order  to  water  them,  I  will  scoop  out  a  number  of 
alder-stalks,  and  fit  the  ends  one  into  another,  and  catch 
the  oozings  of  the  rocks  in  one  end,  and  support  them  on 
little  forks  of  wood  stuck  into  the  ground,  so  that  they  will 


260  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

carry  the  little  streamlets  to  every  spot  that  I  wish  to  wa 
ter  ;  and  lest  the  foot  of  man  trample  and  spoil  the  grass, 
my  aqueducts  of  alder  shall  be  perforated  all  along  between 
the  rocks  and  the  plants  to  which  I  wish  to  lead  the  stream 
with  small  holes,  from  which  a  perpetual  dew  shall  fall 
upon  the  turf." 

Then,  after  a  long  and  affectionate  description  of  his 
mountains,  caverns,  rocks,  flower-beds,  and  orchards,  inter 
spersed  with  exceedingly  pious  reflections  and  godly  rap 
tures,  he  says,  "  In  retiring  from  the  labors  of  this  earth,  I 
have  found  no  other  delight  than  that  of  laying  out  and 
cultivating  my  said  garden,  so  that  since  that  time  I  have 
done  nothing  but  dream  of  the  construction  thereof.  .  .  . 
And  last  week,  while  I  was  asleep  in  my  bed,  I  dreamed 
that  my  garden  was  actually  made  as  I  have  above  de 
scribed,  and  that  I  was  already  beginning  to  eat  the  fruits 
therein  ;  and  it  appeared  to  me  that,  while  passing  through 
this  garden,  I  was  considering  the  wonderful  things  which 
the  Sovereign  Master  has  commenced  in  nature." 

Palissy  diverges  from  this  subject  to  launch  into  consid 
erations  of  a  very  exalted  nature,  yet  full  of  truth,  on  .the 
moral  laws  of  the  whole  universe,  visible  to  a  religious  and 
philosophical  genius,  in  the  physical  laws  of  organic  life. 
He  pours  forth  his  charity  upon  animals,  he  imparts  his 
understanding  to  the  vegetable  kingdom,  and  even  to  rocks, 
fountains,  and  the  ocean  ;  his  soul  converses  with  the  uni 
versal  spirit,  whose  manifestations  he  beholds,  whose  sen 
sitiveness  he  mourns,  and  whose  moan  or  rejoicing  he 
hears  throughout  all  Creation. 

-  "  Nothing  in  nature,"  he  says,  "  produces  its  fruit  with 
out  extreme  labor  or  suffering.  I  say  this  as  well  of  veg 
etable  nature  as  of  animal  and  rational  beings.  If  the 
hen  grows  thin  to  hatch  her  chickens,  if  the  bitch  suffers 
in  whelping  her  litter,  I  can  assure  thee  that  plants  suffer 

in  giving  birth  to  their  fruit 

"  I  was  once  in  the  isles  of  the  Saintonge.  I  saw  a  vine 
bearing  more  grapes  than  all  the  others  :  on  inquiring  the 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  261 

cause,  I  was  told  that  it  was  loaded  to  death.  I  asked 
what  was  meant.  I  was  then  informed  that  more  fruit- 
stems  than  usual  had  been  left  on  it,  because  it  was  in 
tended  to  pluck  it  up  after  the  vintage,  but  that  otherwise 
it  would  not  have  been  suffered  to  bear  so  heavily.  This 
means,  that  if  the  vines  were  left  to  themselves,  the  abund 
ance  they  would  endeavor  to  produce  would  kill  them.  I 
have  often  remarked  trees  and  plants  which  felt  their  de 
cay  approaching,  and  which,  before  death,  hastened  to 
bloom,  and  bring  forth  grain  and  fruit  before  the  accus 
tomed  time What  if  I  spoke  of  men  ?" 

Farther  on  he  notices  in  his  garden  "  the  branches  of 
vines,  peas,  and  gourds,  which  seem  aware  of  their  weak 
nature  ;  for,  not  being  able  to  support  themselves,  they 
throw  out  certain  little  arms  like  filaments  in  the  air,  and, 
meeting  with  some  small  branches,  attach,  suspend,  and 
fasten  themselves  thereto Sometimes,  while  pass 
ing  through  the  walks,  I  would  find  several  of  these  branch 
es  which  had  nothing  to  fasten  to,  and  were  throwing  out 
their  slight  tendrils  in  the  air,  endeavoring  to  seize  some 
thing  to  support  themselves  by.  I  would  then  give  them 
some  boughs  to  prop  their  weakness  ;  and  having  done  so 
one  morning,  I  found  the  next  evening  that  the  plants  had 
sent  forth  their  tendrils  and  twisted  them  round  these 
props.  Then,  marveling  at  the  foresight  of  God,  I  remem 
bered  this  saying,  that  even. the  birds  have  their  share  in 
his  protection,  and  fall  not  without  his  will. 

"  I  also  remarked  certain  trees,  which  seemed  as  if  they 
possessed  some  knowledge,  for  they  were  careful  to  guard 
and  protect  their  fruit,  as  a  woman  does  her  little  children. 
Among  these  vines  and  gourds,  certain  leaves  had  grown 
and  arranged  themselves  so  as  to  cover  the  fruit,  lest  per 
chance  the  cold  might  destroy  it.  The  rose-trees  and 
gooseberry-bushes,  to  defend  themselves  against  any  who 
might  wish  to  strip  them  of  their  buds,  had  put  forward 
defenses  of  sharp  spines.  I  also  saw  wheat  and  other 
corn,  to  which  the  Almighty  had  given  the  power  of  cloth- 


262  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

ing  their  produce  so  beautifully,  that  Solomon,  with  all  his 
wisdom,  was  never  so  well  clad.  All  these  things  led  me 
to  fall  on  my  face  and  worship  the  living  God,  who  hath 
made  such  things  for  the  use  and  service  of  man  !  The 
earth  would  be  blessed  if  man  would  but  work  therein !" 

The  potter  becomes  a  lyrist,  and  the  song  of  the  prophet 
mingles, with  the  work  of  his  hands.  "  There  is  no  treasure 
like  the  small  herbs  of  the  field,  even  the  most  despised." 

If  what  we,  no  doubt  from  ignorance  and  want  of  per 
ception,  call  inanimate  nature,  furnishes  him  matter  for 
such  hymns,  what  must  have  been  the  impressions  he  re 
ceived  from  the  contemplation  of  animals,  of  fields,  and  of 
the  wonders  of  the  human  intellect ! 

"  When  I  went  out  of  the  garden,"  he  says,  "  to  walk  in 
the  meadow  sloping  down  to  the  river,  I  saw  playing,  gam 
boling,  and  sporting  about  certain  lambs,  sheep,  goats,  and 
kids,  kicking,  leaping,  and  making  divers  extraordinary 
movements  and  capers  ;  and,  also,  I  seemed  to  take  great 
delight  in  seeing  certain  shorn  sheep,  which,  feeling  the 
spring  weather,  and  being  without  their  old  clothing,  were 
making  a  thousand  leaps  and  gambols  in  the  meadow.  I 
saw  certain  other  rams,  backing  far  away  to  a  great  dis 
tance,  and  then  running  forward  quickly  with  much  fierce 
ness,  striking  their  horns  one  against  the  other.  I  also  saw 
some  goats,  which,  rising  on  their  hind  legs,  butted  each 
other  with  great  violence.  And  I  saw  some  little  colts 
and  calves,  sporting  and  frolicking  around  their  dams.  .  .  . 
All  these  things  looked  upon  me  with  so  much  pleasure, 
that  I  cried  out  to  myself  that  men  were  very  foolish  thus 
to  despise  country  places  and  the  art  of  agriculture,  which 
our  old,  honest  ancestors,  and  the  prophets  themselves,  did 
not  disdain  to  exercise,  even  to  the  keeping  of  flocks." 

Alas !  it  was  within  the  walls  and  moats  of  his  prison- 
house,  separated  from  his  wife  by  the  grave,  and  from  his 
children  by  his  captivity  ;  shut  out  from  the  view  of  the 
Seine  by  proscription ;  from  the  tools  and  pursuit  of  his 
trade  by  old  age  ;  from  his  brothers  in  religion  by  martyr- 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  263 

dom,  that  Palissy  wrote  these  records  as  mental  consola 
tions  for  his  ruin,  his  dungeon,  and  his  approaching  death. 
His  scattered  leaves,  long  forgotten,  and  at  last  collected, 
form  two  volumes,  real  treasures  of  human  wisdom,  divine 
piety,  and  eminent  genius,  as  well  as  of  great  simplicity, 
vigor,  and  copiousness  of  style.  It  is  impossible,  after 
reading  them,  not  to  consider  the  poor  potter  one  of- the 
greatest  writers  of  the  French  language.  Montaigne  is 
not  more  free  and  flowing;  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  is 
scarcely  more  graphic  ;  neither  does  Bossuet  excel  him  in 
poetical  power.  In  his  allegories,  his  reflections,  his  pa 
thos,  his  descriptions,  and  his  poetry,  he  is  as  great  as  any 
of  the  authors  I  have  named. 

He  was  then  approaching  those  last  hours  of  life,  when 
the  voice  of  the  soul  acquires  additional  melancholy  and 
solemnity,  like  the  sounds  of  evening  when  nature  puts  on 
her  veil  of  darkness  and  repose.     His  patron  took  pity  on 
the  aged  man,  who  was  about  to  die  in  his  fetters,  and 
thus  change  one  tomb  for  another.     King  Henry  the  Third 
went  to  visit  him  in  his  prison,  desiring  to  give  him  his 
liberty,  and  asking,  as  the  price  of  his  pardon,  the  easy 
condition  of  giving  up  his  faith.     "  My  worthy  friend," 
said  the  king,  "  you  have  now  been  forty-five  years  in  the 
service  of  my  mother  and  myself;  we  have  suffered  you 
to  retain  your  religion  amid  fire  and  slaughter.     I  am  so 
pressed  by  the  Guises  and  by  my  people,  that  I  find  my 
self  compelled  to  deliver  you  into  the  hands  of  your  ene 
mies  ;  and  to-morrow  you  will  be  burned  unless  you  are 
converted."     The  old  man  bowed,  touched  by  the  good 
ness  of  the  king,  humbled  by  his  weakness,  but  inflexible 
in  the  faith  of  his  fathers.     "  Sire,"  he  answered,  "  I  am 
ready  to  give  up  the  remainder  of  my  life  for  the  honor 
of  God.     You  have  told  me  several  times  that  you  pity  me, 
and  now,  in  my  turn,  I  pity  you,  who  have  used  the  words 
/  am  compelled.     It  was  not  spoken  like  a  king,  sire  !   and 
they  are  words  which  neither  you,  nor  the  Guises,  nor  the 
people  shall  ever  make  me  utter.     I  CAN  DIE.!' 


264  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

The  courtiers  who  accompanied  the  king,  instead  of  ad 
miring  his  courage,  were  angry.  "  Here  is  insolence !" 
exclaimed  they  ;  "  one  would  suppose  he  had  read  Sene 
ca,  and  was  parodying  the  words  of  the  philosopher,  '  He 
who  can  die  need  never  be  constrained.'  " 

Henry  the  Third,  more  merciful  than  his  court,  in  con 
sideration  of  the  beautiful  works  which  graced  his  palace, 
and  of  his  mother's  memory,  would  not  give  up  Palissy  to 
the  Guises,  but  suffered  age  and  natural  decay  to  finish 
the  prisoner.  He  expired,  a  voluntary  martyr,  in  the  dun 
geons  of  the  Bastille,  and  only  gained  his  liberty  in  death. 

His  fame  lay  long  buried  with  him,  and,  with  his  pro 
ductions,  was  only  recovered  from  oblivion  in  the  last  cen 
tury  by  Faujas  de  Saint  Fond,  Fontenelle,  and  Buffon  ;  in 
this  century,  by  M.  Cap,  who  collected,  classified,  and  wrote 
a  commentary  on  his  works  ;  and  lastly,  quite  recently,  by 
a  young  man,  whose  mind  and  imagination  were  excited 
to  enthusiasm,  by  a  similarity  of  disposition,  for  the  art, 
the  poetry,  and  the  sufferings  of  Palissy — M.  Alfred  Du- 
mesnil.  It  is  to  them  we  owe  the  materials  for  our  rough 
statuette  of  the  old  potter. 

Bernard  de  Palissy  is  the  most  perfect  model  of  the 
workman.  It  is  by  his  example,  rather  than  by  his  works, 
that  he  has  exercised  an  influence  on  civilization,  and  that 
he  has  deserved  a  place  to  himself  among  the  men  who  have 
ennobled  humanity.  Though  he  had  remained  unknown 
and  listless,  making  tiles  in  his  father's  pottery  ;  though 
he  had  never  purified,  moulded,  or  enameled  his  handful 
of  clay  ;  though  his  living  groups,  his  crawling  reptiles, 
his  slimy  snails,  his  slippery  frogs,  his  lively  lizards,  and 
his  damp  herbs  and  dripping  mosses  had  never  adorned 
the  bottoms  or  edges  of  those  dishes,  ewers,  or  salt-cellars, 
those  quaint  and  elaborate  ornaments  of  the  tables  and 
cupboards  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  is  true,  nothing 
would  have  been  wanting  to  the  art  of  Phidias  or  of  Mi 
chael  Angelo — to  the  porcelain  of  Sevres,  of  China,  of 
Florence  or  Japan,  but  we  should  not  have  had  his  life 


BERNARD  DE  PALISSY.  265 

for  the  operative  to  admire  and  imitate.  He  is  the  patri 
arch  of  the  work-shop,  the  poet  of  manual  labor  in  modern 
days ;  he  is  the  potter  of  the  Odyssey,  the  Bible,  and  the 
Gospel,  the  type  incarnate  to  exalt  and  ennoble  every 
business,  however  trivial,  so  that  it  has  labor  for  its 
means,  progress  and  beauty  for  its  motive,  and  the  glory 
of  God  for  its  end. 

Such  was  Bernard  de  Palissy.  Untaught,  save  by  him 
self,  he  feels  that  he  has  a  genius  in  his  fingers'  ends.  He 
does  not  trample  the  fine  earth  under  his  feet ;  he  despises 
not  the  common  material  which  his  situation  has  placed 
in  his  hands  ;  he  endeavors  to  purify  and  ennoble  it  by  an 
infusion  of  his  own  spirit ;  he  travels  over  the  country 
with  his  trowel  and  knife,  earning  his  bread  honorably 
from  kiln  to  kiln ;  and,  when  his  business  has  nothing 
more  to  teach  him,  he  goes  into  the  wilderness  to  examine 
nature,  the  teacher  of  teachers,  by  unveiling  her  myste 
ries  ;  he  acquires  love  and  enthusiasm  for  her  by  dint  of 
contemplation  ;  he  rivals  her  in  form,  color,  and  in  play 
ful  ease  ;  he  transports  the  leaf,  the  herb,  the  fly,  the  rep 
tile,  the  insect,  the  brook,  the  dew,  the  dampness,  the 
freshness,  and  the  gleam  of  light,  to  a  piece  of  clay.  In 
seeking  the  perfection  of  Art,  which  hides  itself  that  it 
may  be  discovered,  and  which  holds  itself  back  that  it 
may  be  mastered  by  force,  he  meets  with  misery,  unbe 
lief,  and  the  scorn  of  his  neighbors  ;  he  follows  his  pursuit 
obstinately,  and  even  savagely  ;  he  burns  his,  house  to  feed 
his  last  furnace  ;  he  forces  his  inventive  genius;  he  ex 
hausts  the  folly  of  hope  and  the  heroism  of  labor ;  finally, 
he  is  rewarded,  he  triumphs,  he  becomes  illustrious,  and 
enriches  his  children.  But  these  earthly  rewards,  for 
which  he  gives  thanks  to  Providence,  are  as  yet  as  noth 
ing  to  him  :  the  laborer  is  satisfied,  but  not  the  man ;  he 
thirsts  after  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the  Eternal.  The 
most  precious  discovery  of  his  solitary  contemplation  of  na 
ture  is  riot  his  art,  but  God,  the  object  and  end  of  every 
perfect  art.  In  his  leisure  hours  he  writes  his  wonderful 

VOL.  I.— M 


266  BERNARD  DE  PALISSY. 

meditations ;  he  gives  full  scope  to  his  intellect  in  his 
hymns,  the  produce  of  his  piety,  far  more  than  in  his  vases, 
the  work  of  his  hands.  Without  study,  and  unlettered,  his 
soul  bursts  forth  with  a  holy  enthusiasm.  He  attaches 
himself  with  steadfast  faith  to  the  persecuted  worship  of 
his  brethren.  He  devotes  his  youth  to  trade  ;  he  sacri 
fices  his,  house  for  his  art ;  he  gives  up  his  old  age,  his  lib 
erty,  and  his  life,  to  his  God  ;  he  flies  from  his  dungeon  to 
heaven  on  the  wings  of  celestial  hope  ;  he  leaves  behind 
him  master-pieces — vain  works,  doubtless,  like  the  grottoes 
of  earth,  sand,  or  shells  that  children  leave  forgotten 
where  they  have  played  with  their  companions,  but  he 
bequeaths  impressive  lessons  and  immortal  examples  of 
labor,  of  patience,  of  perseverance  under  difficulties,  of 
mastery  over  matter,  of  gentle  dignity,  piety,  and  virtue, 
to  workmen  of  all  professions.  His  life  signifies  labor ; 
his  works,  invention ;  his  death,  martyrdom.  His  book 
becomes  the  manual,  not  only  of  the  manufacture  of  earth 
enware,  but  also  of  the  more  sublime  profession  of  speak 
ing  right,  doing  right,  and  living  right ;  his  name  is  a  bea 
con  to  all  unkindly,  stubborn,  yet  successful  occupations. 
Palissy  has  thus  won  a  legitimate  place  among  the  great 
men  who  have  risen  from  obscurity. 

Some  will  say,  "But  he  only  moulded  clay!"  "What 
can  it  signify  ?  Greatness  does  not  depend  upon  the  oc 
cupation,  but  upon  the  mind.  If  such  a  man  be  little,  who 
then  is  great  1 


R  0  0  S  T  A  M. 

A  PERSIAN  BIOGRAPHY  OF  THE  YEAR  OF  THE  WORLD  2900. 


PREFACE,  BY  M.  DE  LAMARTINE,  TO  THE  READER. 

THE  numerous  readers  of  the  first  "Voyage  in  the  East" 
are  aware  that  Madame  de  Lamartine  has  written,  almost 
without  being  herself  conscious  of  it,  the  most  interesting 
pages  of  the  last  volume  of  this  book,  published  in  1834. 

Thus  involuntarily  was  a  retiring  and  diffident  woman 
drawn  into  the  literary  path  previously  adopted  by  her 
husband. 

M.  de  Lamartine,  compelled  by  a  storm  to  put  into  Jaffa, 
and  wishing  to  make  a  difficult  excursion  from  that  place 
to  the  desert  which  separates  Palestine  from  Egypt,  left 
Madame  de  Lamartine  at  the  first-named  city.  She  trav 
eled  alone  from  thence  to  Jerusalem,  to  visit  the  scenes 
spoken  of  by  the  Evangelists,  and  upon  her  return  wrote 
several  notes,  to  impress  what  she  had  seen  more  firmly 
in  her  memory.  * .  -fc 

Already  well  versed  in  the  Arabian  language,  she  took 
advantage  of  the  repose  of  a  winter  in  Syria  to  translate 
a  valuable  and  hitherto  unknown  manuscript,  written  by 
an  Arabian  traveler  among  the  most  remote  tribes  of  Meso 
potamia.  This  is  the  work  entitled  "  Fat  alia  Sayeguyr," 
which  M.  de  Lamartine  purchased  of  the  author,  and  has 
since  presented  to  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris  ;  and  this 
manuscript  now  forms  one  of  the  most  curious  articles  in 
that  great  national  collection. 

M.  Thiers,  at  that  time  Foreign  Minister,  struck  by  this 
document,  requested  M.  de  Lamartine  to  send  for  the  poor 
Arabian  author  to  Paris.  The  government  gave  him  a 


268  ROOSTAM. 

small  situation  on  the  coast  of  Syria,  and  a  trifling  annu 
ity,  which  he  still  enjoys. 

Madame  de  Lamartine  was  urgently  requested  to  per 
mit  her  translation  of  "  Fat  alia  Sayeguyr"  to  appear  in 
"Le  Voyage  en  Orient,"  and  with  much  reluctance  she 
consented. 

This  translation,  preceded  by  some  details  of  her  jour 
ney  to  Jerusalem  and  Bethlehem,  which  accompanied  the 
Arabian  text,  proved  far  more  interesting  than  if  it  had 
been  written  expressly  for  the  purpose.  The  public  re 
sembles  an  echo,  which  loves  to  repeat  what  it  was  not 
intended  to  hear,  intruding,  as  it  were,  upon  a  private  con 
versation. 

Thus  it  was  that  Madame  de  Lamartine  for  once  in  her 
life  became  an  authoress  without  desiring  that  distinction. 
She  then  hastened  to  retire  into  the  habitual  silence  and 
obscurity  of  her  life,  like  a-woman  who,  accidentally  seiz 
ing  the  more  appropriate  weapons  of  her  husband,  finds 
them  not  too  heavy,  but  too  masculine  for  her  hand. 

Nevertheless,  though  Madame  de  Lamartine  abstained 
from  writing,  she  did  not  abandon  the  study  of  Oriental 
literature.  Attracted  by  the  majestic  poetry  of  the  "  Schah- 
Nameh,"  a  celebrated  Persian  epic  (in  fact,  the  Iliad  of 
Persia),  she  collected  from  thence,  for  her  own  gratifica 
tion,  the  principal  events  in  the  life  of  Roostam,  the  early 
hero  of  his  country,  her  Hercules  and  Achilles.  She  thus 
concentrated  and  rearranged  his  history,  one  of  the  most 
stirring  and  dramatic  of  the  Ancient  East,  presenting  to 
our  eyes  an  exact  and  living  picture  of  the  Eastern  World. 
It  forms  also  an  integral  portion  of  the  lives  of  those  great 
men  who  have  identified  their  names  with  the  different 
phases  of  civilization  in  the  most  remarkable  epochs  of 
ancient  or  modern  empires.  This  individual  biography 
has  become  obscure  through  the  lapse  of  time  and  fabu 
lous  invention.  Thus,  in  the  manner  we  have  named,  we 
found  our  labors  upon  the  Persian  hero  anticipated,  and  an 
unexpected  assistant  by  our  own  fireside. 


ROOSTAM.  269 

We  shall  not  attempt  by  revision  to  deprive  Madame  de 
Lamartine's  work  of  that  impress  of  candor,  originality, 
and  naivete  by  which  a  woman's  style  can  always  be  dis 
tinguished.  These  distinctive  qualities  form  a  part  of 
their  writings  as  of  their  minds — the  more  they  value,  the 
more  they  use  them.  They  write  well  because  they  do 
not  try  to  write  well ;  their  style  is  natural,  ours  artificial. 
Which  of  us  would  not  exchange  our  acquired  knowledge 
for  their  instinctive  perception  ? 

We  trust  our  readers  will  receive  for  once  the  incidental 
substitute  with  which  affection  has  supplied  us  ;  and  al 
though  they  may  perceive  that  the  hand  is  changed,  they 
will  not  discover  that  the  spirit  has  deteriorated. 


R  0  0  S  T  A  M. 

BY   MADAME   DE    LAMARTINE. 

THE  origin  of  people,  nations,  and  governments  is  nec 
essarily  mixed  up  with  fable.  War  destroys  or  alters  the 
monuments  of  former  civilization.  Conquest  sweeps  away 
nationality,  and  buries  in  oblivion,  at  least  for  a  time,  the 
annals  of  the  vanquished. 

The  absence  of  written  documents  in  the  early  ages 
obliges  us  to  form  all  our  ideas  of  primitive  history  from 
oral  traditions,  handed  down  from  generation  to  genera 
tion.  These  become  more  or  less  changed  with  the  lapse 
of  time,  and  are  encumbered  with  superstition  and  a  belief 
in  the  miraculous  intervention  of  the  Divinity — a  doctrine 
which  enhances,  while  it  envelops  the  pride  of  every  na 
tion  with  a  halo  of  glory. 

These  traditions  are  full  of  miraculous  symbols,  the 
meaning  of  which  becomes  gradually  lost  until  nothing 
but  the  fiction  remains,  leaving  to  more  advanced  ages 
the  duty  of  discovering  the  true  signification.  Amid  the 
fables  and  superstitions  of  these  remote  ages,  history  finds 
a  few  landmarks,  which  point  out  a  series  of  facts,  and 
commemorate  the  sages  and  heroes  who,  either  by  legis 
lation  or  conquest,  have  influenced  the  progress  of  the  hu 
man  race. 

Poetry  is  almost  invariably  the  channel  through  which 
traditions  are  derived.  She  seizes  upon  them  and  im 
prints  them  on  our  memory  by  rhythmical  power.  She 
embellishes  and  colors  facts  and  sentiments,  and  excites 
the  imagination  by  images  of  grandeur  or  terror. 

It  has  been  said  that  a  love  of  the  marvelous  indicates 
weakness  of  mind,  and  is  the  result  of  ignorance.  Is  it 
not  rather  a  proof  of  great  natural  instinct  and  of  high 


ROOSTAM.  271 

moral  feeling?  For  fiction  elevates  (perhaps  a  little  too 
highly)  noble  deeds  and  greater  virtues,  in  order  to  excite 
emulation  in  those  who  study  them.  It  also  produces  a 
detestation  of  vice,  cruelty,  and  the  abuse  of  power.  The 
love  of  such  recitals  can  not  be  other  than  a  true  admira 
tion  of  the  beautiful  and  sublime. 

Nothing  can  be  more  interesting  than  to  retrace  our 
steps  to  these  remote  periods,  assisted  by  the  new  lights 
that  discoveries  of  monuments  of  antiquity  at  Nineveh  and 
Persepolis  have  thrown  upon  their  history.  We  have  also 
other  valuable  guides  in  the  recent  translations  of  ancient 
documents  discovered  in  India  and  Persia,  introduced  to 
our  notice  by  the  Oriental  Society  of  London,  and  in  M.  de 
Mohl's  admirable  "  Livre  des  Rois"  (Book  of  Kings). 

We  find  in  these  fragments  an  account  of  the  primitive 
manners  of  the  human  race,  the  origin  of  customs  which 
still  remain,  or  of  others  no  longer  in  existence,  and  of 
which  we  regret  the  loss,  as  we  do  that  of  the  old  words 
of  a  language  now  brought  to  perfection.  We  find  there 
the  same  human  passions  that  in  our  own  days  influence 
mankind,  though  much  exaggerated,  powerful  for  either 
good  or  evil,  and  working  where  nature  is  on  a  scale  com 
mensurate  with  themselves,  in  gigantic  and  impenetrable 
forests,  the  resort  of  monsters,  lions,  tigers,  elephants,  and 
giants.  Even  the  span  of  life  is  extended,  the  chroniclers 
sometimes  giving  two  or  three  hundred  years  of  existence 
to  their  heroes,  as  if  both  time  and  space  were  insufficient 
for  their  exploits,  if  confined  within  the  limits  of  an  or 
dinary  life.  Their  joys  and  their  sorrows  are  depicted  as 
extravagant,  but  they  are  made  to  rise  from  the  natural 
sources  of  the  soul,  and  not  from  the  fictitious  springs  of 
modern  conventionalities.  Still,  the  longevity  of  the  an 
cient  Persians,  whose  history  we  are  about  to  relate,  has 
nothing  in  it  that  should  invalidate  the  veracity  of  the  tale. 
Their  contemporaries,  the  Patriarchs  of  the  Bible,  accord 
ing  to  admitted  computation,  lived  from  five  to  nine  hund 
red  years.  Either  their  natural  strength,  so  shortly  after 


272  ROOSTAM. 

the  creation,  was  capable  of  resisting  for  a  longer  time  the 
gradual  progress  of  decay,  or  the  computation  of  weeks, 
months,  or  years  is  erroneous,  and  a  subject  for  argument 
ative  discussion. 

This  is  unimportant :  what  we  look  for  in  primitive  tra 
ditions  is  not  a  chronological  concordance  between  Egypt, 
Chaldsea,  Persia,  and  Greece,  from  the  time  of  Nimrod  to 
that  of  Darius,  but  a  picture  of  creeds,  manners,  customs, 
characters,  vices,  and  virtues. 

What  most  immediately  concerns  us  is,  that  the  Deity 
and  Immortality  are  proclaimed  with  equal  conviction 
in  every  page  of  these  profane  records  as  in  the  sacred 
writings. 

But  if  it  be  interesting  to  follow  the  general  progress  of 
civilization  according  to  history,  it  is  much  more  so  to  set 
forth  and  to  represent  a  particular  epoch  in  the  life  of  a 
great  man,  such  as  Roostam,  popular  throughout  Asia  from 
the  Gulf  of  Smyrna  to  the  extremities  of  China,  and  which 
will  perfectly  portray  the  character  of  his  time. 

To  arrive  at  the  history  of  Roostam,  it  becomes  neces 
sary  to  consider  the  condition  of  the  world  as  known  at  the 
period  when  this  hero  flourished.  Our  readers  must  for 
give  us  if  we  are  compelled  to  detail  the  barbarous  names 
of  the  first  schahs  or  kings  of  ancient  Persia,  indispensable 
to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  story. 

The  exploits  of  Roostam  were  connected  with  the  quar 
rels  of  these  monarchs  among  themselves. 

Persian  traditions  hand  down  the  belief  that,  after  the 
Deluge,  the  descendants  of  Shem,  son  of  Noah,  establish 
ed  themselves  in  Syria,  Arabia,  Persia,  and  Greece.  From 
this  root  proceeded  Heber,  the  grandfather  of  Abraham, 
from  whom  came  Mohammed,  of  the  race  of  Ishmael. 

Pariss,  the  descendant  of  Shem,  gave  his  name  to  Persia. 
Persia  is  considered  as  the  cradle  of  the  first  universal 
monarchy,  by  the  election  of  Kei'oumors,  who  was  chosen 
Schah,  or  King,  by  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes  of  Asia,  in  the 
year  of  the  world  1750.  Of  the  government  and  religion 


ROOSTAM.  273 

of  this  monarchy,  tradition  has  transmitted  to  us  that  the 
adoration  of  one  Supreme  Deity  formed  the  basis  of  their 
worship  ;  and  many  of  their  institutions  recall  to  us  those 
of  the  Bible. 

We  find  in  the  Persian  theogony  the  legend  of  the  rebel 
lious  angels.  "  God,"  says  the  Chronicle,  "  sent  his  exter 
minating  minister,  Harriss,  to  expel  from  the  earth  the  ene 
mies  of  man ;  but,  after  having  triumphed  over  numbers 
of  these  evil  genii,  pride  took  possession  of  Harriss :  he 
believed  himself  equal  to  God,  and  revolted  against  the 
Supreme  Will.  God  then  drove  him  from  his  presence, 
and  changed  his  name  to  Schetan,  which  with  us  is  Satan." 

The  Persians  believed  in  the  existence  of  Dives,  or  evil 
spirits,  who  interfered  in  human  affairs.  These  supernat 
ural  beings  were  supposed  to  be  Pre- Adamites ,  and  had 
been  driven  from  the  earth  at  the  creation  of  man. 

The  people  had  a  superstitious  dread  of  these  Dives,  or 
giants,  who,  they  believed,  were  endowed  with  the  power 
of  animating  the  bodies  of  animals,  birds,  and  even  rep 
tiles.  "Such  of  the  Dives  as  had  escaped  extermination, 
withdrew,"  says  the  Chronicle,  "  to  Mount  Kaf  (Caucasus), 
from  whence  they  descended  to  mix  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world — sometimes  to  assist  mortals  they  had  taken  under 
their  protection,  but  more  frequently  for  purposes  of  re 
venge." 

The  principal  ceremonies  of  the  primitive  religion  of  the 
Persians  consisted  in  ablution  before  prayer  (emblematic 
of  the  purification  of  the  soul  to  merit  the  grace  of  God), 
and  in  prostrations  of  the  face  to  the  earth  in  sign  of  hu 
mility.  On  occasions  of  public  or  private  calamity,  dust 
was  thrown  on  the  head  as  an  additional  act  of  depre 
cation. 

The  Persian  monarchy  subsisted  from  the  reign  of  Kei- 
oumors  to  that  of  the  last  Chosroes,  who  was  conquered  by 
the  Osmanlis.  Every  reign  after  that  of  Ke'ioumors  was 
distinguished  by  inventions  and  improvements.  In  one 
was  discovered  mines,  and  the  use  of  the  forge,  with  the 
M2 


274  ROOSTAM. 

employment  of  iron  for  warlike  arms,  cuirasses,  bucklers, 
&:c.  In  another,  the  weaving  of  wool  into  garments,  em 
broidering  in  gold,  and  making  brocades,  which  soon  re 
placed  the  tiger-skins  with  which  the  first  Persians  were 
clothed.  A  third  monarch  coined  the  first  money  bearing 
an  effigy,  reclaimed  the  falcon,  and  tamed  the  elephant. 
These  reigns  were  constantly  occupied  with  wars  against 
the  Dives  and  giants.  At  last  King  Thamouras  conquered 
the  former,  promising  them  life  on  condition  that  they 
should  divulge  their  secrets  of  necromancy. 

The  art  of  writing,  which  he  was  the  first  to  employ, 
was  attributed  to  the  supernatural  instruction  of  Ariman, 
the  supreme  chief  of  the  Dives. 

The  government  of  Persia  was  of  a  military  and  hered 
itary  character.  The  king  possessed  absolute  power,  and 
the  right  to  select  his  successor  from  among  his  sons,  his 
brothers,  or  his  nephews.  Marriage  was  a  religious  cere 
mony  :  custom  permitted  the  king  to  wed  several  princess 
es,  but  one  alone  wore  the  royal  crown,  and  she  ruled  over 
the  harem,  or  apartment  of  the  women. 

The  civil  and  religious  institutions  of  Persia  are  attrib 
uted  to  Giamschid,  the  fourth  king,  contemporaneous  with 
Abraham. 

He  divided  the  nation  into  four  classes,  or  castes,  in  hon 
or  of  the  four  elements  :  soldiers,  priests,  artisans,  and  la 
borers  in  the  field.  Each  class  wore  a  distinctive  dress, 
and  their  children  were  brought  up  in  that  to  which  their 
parents  belonged.  The  class  of  Magi,  or  wise  men  (Mou- 
bcds,  or  priests),  perpetuated  and  increased  in  each  suc 
ceeding  generation,  and  never  being  thinned  by  war,  be 
came  almost  innumerable.  Astronomy  and  religious  wor 
ship,  of  which  they  alone  had  any  idea,  were  soon  mingled 
with  astrology,  magic,  necromancy,  and  the  occult  sciences, 
and  gave  to  these  hereditary  priests  an  absolute  power  over 
both  the  lower  and  higher  classes  of  the  people,  who  con 
sulted  them  on  every  occasion,  asking  them  to  name  the 
holy  or  unlucky  days,  and  to  cast  the  horoscopes  of  their 


ROOSTAM.  275 

children.  They  bestowed  on  them  valuable  presents,  either 
as  rewards  for  a  happy  augury,  or  in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
a  favorable  one.  The  interpretation  of  dreams  also  gave 
them  great  influence.  Trial  by  fire  was  frequently  used  in 
the  cases  of  state  criminals.  Giamschid  instituted  several 
religious  fetes.  The  first  was  in  commemoration  of  the 
vernal  equinox,  the  reawakening  of  nature.  After  the  re 
ligious  ceremony,  the  people  assembled  together,  their  re 
joicings  were  accompanied  by  music,  the  buildings  were 
illuminated,  and  the  rights  of  hospitality  exercised  with 
Eastern  magnificence. 

Each  element  was  supposed  to  be  governed  by  an  angel 
appointed  by  God.  The  first  of  these  angels — that  of  the 
sun,  emblem  of  fire — was  adored  as  the  most  brilliant  sym 
bol  of  the  Deity. 

The  different  portions  of  the  globe,  and  every  action  of 
human  life,  were  placed  under  the  protection  of  God,  who 
charged  his  angels  to  execute  his  will. 

At  these  grand  religious  ceremonies,  the  king  threw  aside 
his  royal  ornaments,  dressed  himself  in  white,  emblematic 
of  humility,  and  repaired  to  the  "  high  places,"  to  adore  the 
all-powerful  Deity. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  fete  of  the  earth,  the  king  re- 
t  ceived  at  his  own  table  the  principal  agriculturists,  calling 
them  "  brothers,"  and  congratulating  them  on  the  superi 
ority  of  their  labors,  and  the  happiness  of  a  rustic  life.  At 
the  fete  of  the  commemoration  of  the  dead,  the  priests  mod 
eled  some  figures  in  clay  ;  the  people,  having  paid  them  all 
honor  in  memory  of  departed  great  men,  consumed  them  on 
a  funeral  pile,  either  that  the  place  which  they  had  used 
for  this  religious  observance  might  not  be  desecrated,  or  to 
mark  the  emptiness  of  all  human  grandeur  ;  an  illustration 
of  the  text,  "Dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust  shalt  thou  return." 
The  schahs,  or  kings,  affected  great  simplicity  of  manner 
toward  their  own  subjects,  and  proportionate  ostentation 
when  they  came  in  contact  with  foreign  princes.  They  as 
sumed  pompous  titles  when  holding  intercourse  with  their 


276  ROOSTAM. 

enemies,  but  at  home  the  sovereign  was  merely  called  "  The 
Servant  of  the  Most  High,"  "your  Schah." 

Each  member  of  the  royal  family,  and  every  feudatory 
prince,  had  his  coat  of  arms  embroidered  on  his  banners. 
Dragons,  suns,  crescents,  stars — in  fact,  all  the  signs  of  the 
zodiac,  upon  tissues  of  different  colors,  distinguished  the 
chiefs  or  Pelewans.  They  came  in  great  pomp,  surrounded 
by  their  vassals,  to  render  homage  to  the  King  of  Persia, 
and  to  accompany  him  to  war. 

Giamschid  was  the  first  who  employed  precious  stones 
in  decorating  his  capital  (now  Persepolis)  with  a  palace 
surrounded  by  forty  columns  of  marble,  ornamented  with 
gold — a  work  attributed  to  the  magicians.  He  completed 
many  other  undertakings  more  useful  to  his  people.  He 
discovered  the  medicinal  virtues  of  plants  ;  and  it  is  said 
that,  having  cured  all  the  maladies  in  his  empire,  death 
was  unknown  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  reign.  He  took 
distant  voyages  to  obtain  knowledge,  and  improved  naviga 
tion  to  such  an  extent  that  he  was  enabled  to  trace  the 
coast  as  far  as  China. 

The  end  of  his  reign  was  unfortunate.  "  He  forsook  the 
path  of  justice,"  says  the  Chronicle,  "  and  God  abandoned 
him.  Zohak,  king  of  Touran,  his  successor  and  murderer, 
was  an  irreligious  prince,  who,  to  establish  his  power, 
leagued  with  the  evil  genii,  and  became  the  instrument  of 
their  wickedness.  He  conquered  Istakhar  (now  Persepo 
lis),  and  reigned  tyrannically  for  many  years,  when,  by  di 
vine  intervention,  the  existence  of  Feridoun,  grandson  of 
Giamschid,  brought  up  secretly  by  his  mother  Feramek,* 
was  made  known  to  the  Magi.  The  people  rose  under  the 
leadership  of  a  blacksmith  named  Kiawek,  who  made  a 
standard  of  his  leathern  apron,  and  ran  with  it  into  the 
town,  calling  the  inhabitants  to  arm,  drive  the  impious  Zo 
hak  from  the  throne,  and  re-establish  the  line  of  Giamschid 

*  Feridoun  was  nursed  by  a  cow,  the  grateful  remembrance  of  which 
he  preserved  by  attaching  the  symbol  of  a  cow's  head  to  the  handle  of 
the  mace  carried  by  the  Persian  kings. 


ROOSTAM.  277 

in  the  person  of  his  grandson.     The  standard  of  Kiawek 
became  thenceforth  the  royal  banner. 

"  The  blacksmith's  apron,  embroidered  in  gold,  and  en 
riched  with  precious  stones,  glittered  in  the  sun."  Feri- 
doun  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson,  Minu-tcher,  who  be 
came  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Persian  kings,  and  governed 
gloriously  during  a  long  reign. 

Upon  his  accession  he  thus  addressed  the  assembled 
people  : 

"  I  am  seated  on  the  throne  of  heaven,  and  earth  is  my 
slave ;  but  with  all  this  power  I  myself  am  a  slave,  the 
servant  of  the  Most  High  God."  Subsequently  he  spoke 
of  justice  thus :  "  Whoever  ill-treats  a  poor  person,  or  any 
one  belonging  to  him,  or  shows  pride  on  account  of  his 
great  possessions,  or  afflicts  the  unfortunate,  shall  meet 
Heaven's  malediction  and  mine.  Sword  in  hand,  I  will 
exterminate  him  in  my  anger." 

"  The  world  is  as  deceitful  as  the  wind :  it  nurtures 
men  gently,  but  when  it  resumes  its  gift,  what  signifies  it 
whether  it  be  a  heap  of  dust  or  a  pearl  ?  Happy  is  he, 
whether  king  or  slave,  whose  memory  is  blessed." 

It  was  during  the  reign  of  this  king,  Minu-tcher,  that 
our  hero  Roostam  was  born. 

We  must  now,  in  a  few  words,  state  how  the  details  of 
the  life  of  this  distinguished  chieftain  have  descended  to 
us. 

After  the  conquest  and  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of 
Persia  by  the  Mohammedans,  during  the  reign  of  the  last 
of  the  schahs,  Chosroes,  the  descendants  of  the  tributary 
and  feudatory  sovereigns  of  Persia,  subdued,  but  not  en 
tirely  dispossessed  of  their  fiefs,  lived  alone,  hiding  them 
selves  from  the  rapacity  of  their  conquerors  ;  but  when  the 
power  of  the  Mohammedans  was  enfeebled  by  the  wars 
of  Ali,  Omar,  and  their  followers,  these  descendants  of  the 
great  Persian  families  began  to  raise  their  heads.  They 
had  no  hope  of  recovering  their  independence  except  by 
awakening  the  national  spirit.  The  recital  of  the  glory 


278  ROOSTAM. 

and  prosperity  of  their  ancestors  appeared  to  them  the 
"best  method  of  appealing  to  the  pride  of  the  present  gen 
eration,  and  of  urging  them  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the 
stranger.  The  Dikans  (a  name  which  signifies  at  the  same 
time  land-owners  and  learned  men)  collected  all  the  tra 
ditions  of  the  Persian  heroes,  had  them  put  into  verse  in 
their  own  language  (the  Pelvi)  by  the  native  poets,  and 
sung  in  the  public  places,  as  afterward  the  verses  of  Ho 
mer  were  sung  throughout  the  extent  of  Greece  by  itin 
erant  vocalists. 

The  Sultan  Mansour  the  First,  who  himself  descended 
from  the  line  of  Chosroes,  endeavored  to  collect  all  the 
fragments  of  ancient  Persian  history,  from  its  foundation 
under  the  first  chief,  Ke'ioumors,  to  its  conquest  by  the 
Mohammedans.  He  employed  all  the  learned  men  in  his 
kingdom  to  search  for  the  traditions  preserved  by  the  Di 
kans,  and  to  revise  the  Schah-Nameh,  or  Book  of  Kings, 
which  was  finished  in  the  reign  of  Mahmoud  Gasnevy,  by 
Firdousi,  the  Persian  Homer. 

Firdousi  was  the  son  of  a  Dikan  of  Khorassan,  and  lived 
in  the  town  of  Thouss.  He  had  from  his  youth  almost 
existed  upon  ancient  traditions,  and  employed  many  years 
in  rendering  into  poetry  all  the  anecdotes  he  could  collect 
from  the  rude  but  authentic  versions  of  the  Dikans.  He 
lived  in  retirement,  keeping  his  work  carefully  concealed, 
not  having  yet  found  a  patron  worthy  of  adopting  it. 

When  the  report  reached  him  that  Mahmoud  Gasnevy 
had  assembled  the  poets  at  his  court  in  order  to  accomplish 
a  work  which  he  alone  had  undertaken  in  secret,  he  could 
not  resist  the  desire  of  going  to  Ghuznee,  the  residence  of 
Mahmoud  ;  but  his  name  being  unknown,  he  was  at  a  loss 
how  to  obtain  an  introduction  to  the  sultan.  However, 
the  consciousness  of  his  own  talent  induced  him  to  set  out, 
determined  at  least  to  seek  an  interview  with  the  poets 
employed  by  Mahmoud. 

He  reached  the  palace  assigned  by  the  sultan  to  the 
three  poets,  and  saw  them  drinking  and  carousing  in  a 


ROOSTAM.  279 

beautiful  garden.  He  presented  himself  humbly  before 
them.  They  received  him  coldly,  and  as  if  he  were  a  men 
dicant.  Firdousi  was  not  discouraged  :  he  spoke  to  them 
of  poetry  ("  AncK  io  son  pittore").  Then,  wishing  to  amuse 
themselves  at  his  expense,  they  made  a  sign,  and  each  of 
the  three  recited  a  verse,  terminating  with  the  same  rhyme, 
for  which  a  fourth  was  not  to  be  found  in  the  language. 
They  then  defied  him  to  complete  the  strophe  ;  but  Fir 
dousi,  better  acquainted  with  the  resources  of  poetry  and 
the  history  of  his  own  country,  improvised  the  fourth  verse 
directly,  ending  it  with  the  name  of  a  hero.  Seized  with 
jealousy,  they  became  anxious  to  get  rid  of  this  formidable 
rival. 

Firdousi  modestly  retired,  but,  grieved  at  heart  by  the 
ill  success  of  his  first  attempt,  he  entered  a  mosque  to  pour 
out  his  sorrows  in  prayer. 

Mahek,  one  of  the  sultan's  favorites,  struck  by  the  noble 
appearance  of  Firdousi,  and  touched  by  his  grief,  approach 
ed  and  interrogated  him.  They  immediately  formed  a 
friendship  for  each  other,  and  Firdousi  told  him  his  adven 
ture,  and  recited  some  beautiful  verses.  Mahek  related 
to  the  sultan  what  he  had  heard.  Mahmoud  desired  to 
see  the  stranger.  Firdousi  repeated,  in  the  presence  of 
the  sultan  and  the  poets,  some  magnificent  episodes  from 
his  poems  ;  but  his  enemies  were  determined  that  he 
should  not  obtain  an  easy  conquest,  and  suggested  that,  in 
all  probability,  these  verses  were  not  written  by  himself. 
Mahmoud  directed  that  each  poet  should  be  shut  up  alone, 
and  named  a  subject  on  which  he  was  to  write. 

The  triumph  of  Firdousi  was  complete ;  his  rivals  re 
tired  from  the  struggle  of  their  own  accord,  and  the  sultan 
intrusted  to  him  alone  the  task  of  putting  the  Schah-Na- 
meh  into  60,000  distichs,  promising  him  an  equal  number 
of  golden  ducats  as  a  reward. 

Firdousi,  having  accomplished  his  wishes,  summoned 
all  the  Dikans  of  any  renown  to  assist  him  in  collecting 
the  ancient  traditions,  and  neglected  nothing  that  could 


280  ROOSTAM. 

make  his  work  a  master-piece.  When  the  treasurer  wish 
ed  to  present  him  with  a  first  payment  of  twenty  thousand 
ducats,  he  refused  to  receive  it  until  he  had  completed  his 
task,  saying  he  intended  to  erect  a  monument  with  it  in 
his  native  town  of  Thouss.  Firdousi  spent  many  years  in 
accomplishing  his  great  undertaking :  he  said  himself,  in 
speaking  of  his  entire  labor,  joined  to  what  he  wrote  at 
the  court  of  Mahmoud,  that  he  had  occupied  thirty  years 
in  its  execution.  He  was  more  than  seventy-two  when  it 
was  completed,  but  the  enthusiasm  of  the  sultan  had  cool 
ed,  and  when  he  should  have  sent  Firdousi  the  promised 
recompense,  his  vizier,  Mehmendi,  represented  to  him  that 
sixty  thousand  ducats  of  gold  was  the  burden  of  an  ele 
phant,  and  that  he  ought  to  reduce  it  to  sixty  thousand 
pieces  of  silver  ;  an  act  of  dishonesty  to  which  the  sultan 
consented.  Firdousi,  indignant  at  this  treatment,  instant 
ly  divided  the  sixty  thousand  pieces  of  silver  among  his 
servants.  Mehmendi,  fearing  that  the  anger  of  Firdousi 
might  prejudice  him  with  the  sultan,  excited  the  rage  of 
Mahmoud  against  the  poet,  declaring  that  he  was  wanting 
in  respect  to  his  sovereign.  The  sultan  ordered  that  Fir 
dousi  should  be  put  to  death. 

Secretly  warned  of  his  danger,  Firdousi  escaped,  dis 
guised  as  a  dervish,  to  Bagdad,  where  he  lived  for  several 
years,  persecuted  by  the  anger  of  the  sultan,  but  protected 
by  Achmet  the  Fourth.  At  last,  the  desire  of  revisiting 
his  native  country  and  family  in  his  old  age  determined 
him  to  return  to  Thouss,  notwithstanding  the  dangers  to 
which  he  exposed  himself. 

Upon  the  death  of  his  vizier  Mehmendi,  the  sultan  re 
pented,  and  wished  to  repair  the  evil  he  had  done,  but  it 
was  too  late.  As  the  elephant  laden  with  gold  arrived  at 
Firdousi's  door,  his  coffin  was  leaving  it.  His  family,  in 
dignant,  and  convinced  that  grief  had  shortened  his  days, 
refused  to  receive  this  tardy  reparation  ;  when  his  daugh 
ter,  recalling  to  her  remembrance  the  wishes  of  her  father 
on  this  subject,  declared  that  he  had  bequeathed  the  gold 


ROOSTAM.  281 

for  the  construction  of  a  bridge  over  the  Oxus.  The  money 
was  accordingly  placed  in  the  city  treasury,  that  the  last 
desires  of  Firdousi  might  be  fulfilled. 

It  is  a  difficult  task  to  condense  and  render  acceptable 
in  plain  prose  the  history  of  Roostam,  taken  from  the  poem 
of  Firdousi,  so  admirably  translated  into  blank  verse  from 
the  Persian  by  M.  de  Mohl,  following  step  by  step,  and 
strophe  by  strophe,  the  poem  of  the  Schah-Nameh.  But 
as  this  great  work  is  known  only  to  a  few,  I  am  anxious 
to  introduce  it  to  the  notice  and  admiration  of  the  general 
public,  for  which  this  collection  is  written.  The  style  of 
the  Persian  poem,  its  Oriental  images,  epic  scenes,  and 
marvelous  tales,  can  not  be  easily  translated  into  familiar 
language.  Nevertheless,  the  exploits  of  the  Grecian  Her 
cules,  which  are  not  less  wonderful,  and  his  life,  which  is 
certainly  less  historical  than  that  of  Roostam,  have  been 
universally  received.  It  only  remains,  therefore,  that  the 
Persian  hero  should  become  as  well  known  in  the  West 
as  he  is  in  the  East,  where,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many 
centuries,  even  the  children's  toys  represent  some  of  the 
principal  events  in  his  life,  and  where  his  exploits  are 
celebrated  in  their  most  popular  songs. 

The  "  Book  of  Kings"  of  Firdousi  opens  with  an  invo 
cation  : 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Master  of  the  soul  and  of  intelli 
gence,  whose  name  is  above  all  others,  and  beyond  all 
imagination  and  conception.  Thought  itself  can  not  reach 
him  who  is  beyond  space  and  eternity.  All  that  is  raised 
above  the  world  passes  the  reach  of  human  understanding 
and  wisdom.  When  wisdom  clothes  itself  in  words,  it 
can  only  use  those  with  which  it  is  acquainted.  None 
understand  the  Deity  as  he  really  is.  We  can  do  nothing, 
therefore,  but  obey  and  worship  him,  seek  the  true  path, 
and  be  careful  to  fulfill  all  his  commandments. 

"  Powerful  is  he  who  knows  God.  The  knowledge  of 
him  renews  the  heart,  but  words  can  not  pierce  the  veil, 
nor  thought  reach  the  Eternal. 


282  ROOSTAM. 

"  Speak,  0  sage,  from  the  dictates  of  reason,  all  thou 
knowest,  that  those  who  listen  may  derive  improvement. 
Reason  is  the  eye  and  guardian  of  the  soul.  Take  reason 
always  as  your  guide  ;  she  will  enable  you  to  shun  that 
which  is  evil.  Rest  assured  that  this  book  contains  noth 
ing  false  or  deceitful,  and  that  all  those  who  are  endowed 
with  intelligence  may  benefit  from  my  words,  even  when 
they  are  to  be  interpreted  by  symbolical  signs." 

This  is  the  origin  and  birth  of  Roostam.  The  most 
powerful  of  the  princes  or  tributary  chiefs  of  the  great 
kingdom  of  Persia  was  Sam  (the  grandfather  of  Roost- 
am),  prince  of  Zaboulistan,  a  hero  renowned  for  his  brav 
ery,  justice,  and  virtue.  He  was  surnamed  the  Champion 
of  the  People.  Mirm-tcher,  king  of  Persia,  summoned  him 
to  his  aid  against  the  King  of  Touran,  his  enemy.  Sam 
accompanied  him  to  the  war  with  great  pomp,  and  took 
his  place  by  his  side  in  all  his  councils.  Sam  had  a  son 
called  Zal-zer,  who  was  born  with  white  hair.  This  ex 
traordinary  circumstance  being  considered  by  the  astrolo 
gers  as  an  evil  augury,  the  infant  was  sent  far  from  the 
court,  notwithstanding  the  despair  of  his  mother,  and 
abandoned  upon  a  distant  mountain  called  the  Alborz, 
where  he  was  miraculously  preserved,  says  the  Chronicle, 
by  an  eagle,  who  nursed  him  in  her  nest.  Some  years 
after,  Sam  had  a  dream,  which  told  him  that  the  son  he 
had  repudiated  would  become  a  great  chief,  and  the  fa 
ther  of  the  greatest  hero  that  had  yet  appeared  upon  the 
earth. 

Sam  repented  that  he  had  so  cruelly  abandoned  his  son, 
and  passed  several  days  in  praying  that  he  might  be  re 
stored  to  him.  God  listened  to  his  prayer,  and  consoled 
him  by  a  second  dream,  in  which  he  learned  that  his  son 
had  been  preserved  by  the  Dive  Simourg.  Sam  set  out 
for  the  mountain.  He  arrived  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  rock, 
rising  perpendicularly  to  the  clouds,  without  any  path  by 
which  he  could  reach  the  summit,  whereon  he  perceived 
an  eagle's  nest. 


ROOST AM.  283 

He  again  besought  the  help  of  the  Almighty  by  humil 
iation,  and  accusing  Himself  bitterly  of  the  crime  he  had 
committed  in  abandoning  his  son.  God,  thinking  him 
sufficiently  punished,  commanded  the  eagle  to  descend 
from  its  eyrie,  carrying  Zal-zer  on  its  wings.  It  laid  him 
at  the  feet  of  his  father.  Zal-zer,  sobbing,  refused  to  quit 
his  eagle  nurse.  His  father  made  him  understand  that  it 
was  the  will  of  God  that  he  should  do  so.  The  eagle,  who 
was  the  Dive  Simourg  transformed,  gave  him  a  feather, 
which  he  was  always  to  wear  on  his  head,  and  when  in 
any  danger,  to  throw  it  into  a  brazier,  and  invoke  the  as 
sistance  of  Simourg. 

Sam  carried  his  son  away  upon  an  elephant,  and  he  was 
received  with  great  joy  at  his  father's  court. 

Zal-zer,  having  been  instructed  by  Sam  in  the  arts  of 
war  and  government,  expressed  a  desire  to  travel,  that  he 
might  bring  back  to  Zaboulistan  some  of  the  discoveries 
and  inventions  of  other  nations.  He  set  out  for  Hindos- 
tan  with  several  select  companions  and  a  suite  worthy  of 
his  rank. 

He  passed  much  time  in  the  cities,  examining  their 
monuments,  and  in  the  country,  studying  agriculture.  He 
was  received  with  great  honor  by  Mihrab,  king  of  Cabul ; 
but  Mihrab  being  of  the  family  of  Zohak  the  Tyrant,  Zal- 
zer  would  not  enter  his  palace,  but  encamped  outside  the 
town  in  the  Valley  of  Roses. 

King  Mihrab  had  an  only  daughter,  who  was  very  beau 
tiful,  and  concealed,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  East, 
from  every  eye.  Zal-zer  heard  of  this  marvelous  beauty, 
called  the  Pearl  of  the  Harem,  and  became  enamored  of 
her.  The  Princess  Roudabee,  on  her  part,  heard  her  fa 
ther  praise  the  exploits  and  royal  mien  of  Zal-zer.  He 
said  that "  Zal-zer  excited  admiration  and  love  by  his  lof 
ty  stature  and  beautiful  countenance.  Roudabee  ardent 
ly  desired  to  see  him.  She  sent  her  favorite  slaves  into 
the  valley  near  the  camp  of  Zal-zer  to  gather  the  roses 
from  which  the  Eastern  women  distill  perfumes  and  sweet 


284  ROOSTAM. 

essences.  Zal-zer  perceived  them  from  his  tent,  and  left 
it  as  for  the  chase.  He  started  a  bird,  which  fell  dead  at 
the  feet  of  the  slaves  of  Roudabe'e.  He  approached  them 
to  pick  it  up,  and  entered  into  conversation.  He  spoke  to 
them  of  their  mistress  and  of  his  love  for  her,  and  gave 
them  ornaments  of  gold  and  precious  stones.  The  slaves 
reported  the  nattering  things  that  Zal-zer  had  said  to 
Roudabe'e  ;  and  after  some  conferences  carried  on  through 
them,  she  consented  to  grant  him  an  interview  at  the 
foot  of  the  tower.  Zal-zer,  at  the  height  of  his  desires, 
"  thought  of  the  length  of  the  day,  which  appeared  to  him 
a  year,  and  longed  for  the  night." 

As  soon  as  the  sun  had  set,  and  they  had  closed  the 
palace  gates  and  taken  away  the  key,  the  prince  directed 
his  steps  toward  the  tower.  Roudabe'e  appeared  upon  the 
balcony  in  the  moonlight,  and,  raising  her  veil,  dazzled 
Zal-zer  by  the  radiance  of  her  beauty.  "  The  battlements 
of  the  palace  were  illumined  by  this  brilliant  gem."  The 
poet  says,  "  Her  figure  was  like  a  palm-tree,  her  complex 
ion  resembled  ivory  ;  she  wore  upon  her  head  a  crown 
which  God  had  given  her  ;  her  eyes  were  soft  and  melan 
choly  ;  her  eyebrows  arched  ;  her  nose  straight  and  thin  ; 
her  mouth  narrow  as  the  heart  of  a  sorrowful  man  ;  her 
hair  fell  in  long  curls  to  her  feet ;  her  sweet  eyes  were 
full  of  languor,  her  features  beaming  with  life  ;  her  cheeks 
were  like  flowers,  her  hair  odoriferous  as  musk ;  the  breath 
of  life  appeared  to  be  concentrated  in  her  lips." 

Then  Zal-zer  threw  his  bowstring  over  the  battlements 
of  the  palace,  and  mounted  to  the  balcony.  Roudabee  un 
fastened  the  long  tresses  of  her  ebon  hair,  and  offered  them 
to  assist  him  in  ascending.  "  She  received  him  in  a  hall," 
says  the  Chronicle,  "  ornamented  like  the  smiling  spring, 
adorned  with  portraits  of  heroes,  and  hung  with  Chinese 
brocades.  She  placed  around  the  room  vases  of  gold  filled 
with  musk,  wine,  and  amber.  On  one  side  were  garlands 
of  the  purple  rose,  narcissus,  and  tulip  ;  on  the  other, 
branches  of  jessamine  and  lily.  All  the  cups  were  of 


ROOSTAM.  285 

gold,  ornamented  with  turquoises  ;  and  from  the  palace  of 
'  this  creature  beautiful  as  the  sun,'  there  ascended  a  per 
fume  which  reached  the  heavens.  On  receiving  the  hero, 
the  cheeks  of  Roudabee  reddened  like  the  flower  of  the 
pomegranate.  She  seated  herself  upon  a  divan  covered 
with  a  carpet  embroidered  in  gold,  and  Zal-zer  placed  him 
self  by  her  side.  The  slaves  remained  at  a  respectful  dis 
tance,  at  the  other  end  of  the  apartment." 

"  Oh,  lovely  maiden,  beautiful  as  the  moon,"  said  the 
hero,  "  may  my  blessing,  and  that  of  Heaven,  attend  you ! 
How  often  during  the  night,  my  eyes  fixed  upon  the  north 
ern  star,  have  I  besought  the  Ruler  of  the  world  to  permit 
me  to  see  thy  face  !  I  know  that  the  anger  of  Minu-tcher, 
when  he  learns  this  adventure,  will  be  excited  against  me ; 
but  I  hold  my  life  and  person  as  valueless,  and  I  would 
part  with  all  that  I  possess  rather  than  break  the  faith  I 
have  vowed  to  you.  Our  Creator  hears  my  words,  and 
you  shall  be  my  bride  in  the  face  of  the  assembled  world!" 

Roudabee  swore  that  she  would  never  have  any  other 
husband  than  Zal-zer.  And  when  the  sound  of  the  drum 
from  the  neighboring  tents  reached  them,  their  eyes  filled 
with  tears,  and  they  reproached  the  sun,  saying,  "  Oh, 
glory  of  the  universe,  wait  yet  one  instant;  come  not  so 
quickly."  It  was  the  same  prayer,  the  same  regret,  as 
that  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  in  their  morning  farewell,  in  the 
immortal  scene  of  the  baftony. 

The  mother  of  Roudabe'e  discovered  the  presents  that 
Zal-zer  had  sent  to  his  betrothed.  Her  father  entered  her 
apartment  in  a  phrensy  of  rage,  and  threatened  to  kill  her; 
but  Roudabe'e,  unmoved,  replied  with  firmness  and  sweet 
ness  that  she  would  never  wed  any  other  than  Zal-zer.  King 
Mihrab,  fearing  the  anger  of  this  powerful  chief,  composed 
his  anger,  and  left  the  matter  to  the  development  of  time. 

The  marriage  was  long  deferred  through  the  hatred  of 
Minu-tcher  to  the  race  of  Zohak  ;  but  the  perseverance  of 
Zal-zer  finally  overcame  all  difficulties,  and  he  brought 
his  bride  in  triumph  to  Nimrouz,  his  capital. 


286  ROOSTAM. 

After  nine  months  of  great  suffering,  Roudabee  felt  the 
hour  of  her  confinement  approaching.  In  a  state  of  alarm 
that  could  not  be  assuaged,  Zal-zer  consulted  the  astrolo 
gers,  who  declared  that  the  infant  would  never  see  the 
light  unless  by  the  aid  of  a  surgical  operation.  Frantic 
at  the  idea  of  his  adored  wife's  danger,  he  remembered 
Simourg,  threw  into  the  flames  the  feather  which  he  .had 
given  him  as  a  talisman  in  the  hour  of  danger,  and  invoked 
his  assistance.  Simourg  answered  his  appea],  and  de 
scended  upon  the  palace  like  a  whirlwind.  He  reassured 
the  king,  and  composed  a  draught  which  rendered  Roud 
abee  insensible  during  the  time  that  her  side  was  opened. 
He  mixed  some  herbs  and  musk  together  to  cure  the  wound ; 
arid  when  she  recovered  from  her  stupor,  she  beheld  with 
delight  an  infant  of  wondrous  beauty  and  unusual  size. 

Zal-zer,  overpowered  with  happiness,  called  him  Roos- 
tam  (which  signifies  deliverance).  He  returned  thanks  to 
Heaven,  and  in  his  joy  at  the  comeliness  and  strength  of 
Roostam,  caused  his  image  to  be  moulded,  mounted  upon 
a  white  elephant,  and  sent  it  to  delight  the  eyes  of  his 
grandfather  Sam,  whose  heart  was  filled  with  joy.  "  I 
have  besought  the  Creator  of  the  world  day  and  night," 
said  he,  "  that  I  might  live  to  see  a  son  of  my  race  who 
should  resemble  me  ;  I  can  now  only  pray  for  his  preser 
vation" — and  he  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven. 

"  When  Roostam  had  attained^the  height  of  eight  palms, 
and  resembled  a  noble  cypress-tree,  he  might  have  been 
taken  for  a  star  upon  which  all  the  world  gazed  with  ad 
miration.  On  beholding  his  stature,  his  intelligence,  his 
high  spirit  and  wisdom,  the  people  said  that  he  was  Sam 
the  Hero." 

Sam  set  out  to  visit  his  grandson.  When  Zal-zer  heard 
that  he  was  approaching,  he  prepared  a  fete,  and  the 
neighing  of  the  Arab  horses  and  cries  of  the  elephants  could 
be  heard  at  a  distance  of  five  miles.  A  war  elephant  was 
caparisoned  in  the  richest  manner,  and  on  his  back  they 
fixed  a  golden  throne,  on  which  the  young  Roostam  was 


ROOSTAM.  287 

seated.  Upon  his  head  they  placed  a  crown,  round  his 
waist  a  girdle,  and  in  his  hands  a  bow  and  arrows,  and 
in  this  manner  they  conducted  him  before  his  grandfather. 

"  When  Sam  beheld  his  noble  form,  his  arms  and  shoul 
ders  worthy  of  a  hero,  he  smiled  as  he  looked  on  this 
young  lion,  and  his  heart  expanded  with  delight.  The 
rejoicings  lasted  for  several  days. 

"  At  length  Sam,  feeling  that  his  death  approached,  re 
solved  to  return  to  his  own  country  ;  he  sent  for  his  grand 
son,  and  thus  addressed  him  :  '  Oh,  my  son,  never  forsake 
the  just  God.  Always  prefer  wisdom  to  riches  :  abhor  all 
evil  actions,  and  seek  to  obey  the  voice  of  the  Creator. 
Recollect  that  all  worldly  things  are  perishable.  If  you 
wish  to  enjoy  happiness  here  and  hereafter,  follow,  and  do 
not  neglect,  the  counsel  I  have  given  you.  Walk  always 
in  the  right  path.'  Having  spoken  thus,  and  his  heart 
overflowing  with  tenderness,  he  took  leave  of  his  son  and 
grandson,  who  accompanied  him  during  three  days  on  his 
return." 

Roostam  soon  began  to  give  proof  of  his  strength  and 
courage,  One  night,  while  still  a  child,  there  arose  a  great 
tumult  in  the  palace  of  Zal-zer.  The  white  elejphant 
had  broken  his  chains,  and  had  become  furious.  Nobody 
dared  to  approach  him.  Roostam  rose,  and,  without  dress 
ing  himself,  seized  his  father's  arms,  overturned  those  who 
tried  to  oppose  his  passage,  and  rushing  up  to  the  elephant, 
uttering  a  cry  like  the  cry  of  a  young  lion,  and  without 
giving  the  animal  time  to  defend  himself  or  to  attack  his 
opponent,  aimed  such  a  violent  blow  at  his  head  that  he 
fell,  stunned  and  motionless.  Roostam,  calm  and  without 
showing  the  least  emotion,  returned  to  his  apartment. 
When  his  father  learned  what  had  happened,  he  ran  to 
him,  and,  kissing  him  on  the  forehead,  said,  "  Oh,  son  of 
a  lion  !  as  such  you  have  raised  your  claw.  Though  still 
a  child,  your  equal  does  not  exist:  you  can  now  gird  on 
the  sword,  and  revenge  the  blood  of  your  grandfather 
Ne'riman.  Listen  to  my  words.  Upon  Mount  Sipend  there 


288  ROOSTAM. 

is  a  castle  whose  top  appears  to  touch  the  clouds ;  the 
eagle's  flight  extends  not  so  far.  It  is  full  of  gold  and  pre 
cious  things  ;  by  one  road  alone  can  it  be  reached,  and  the 
height  of  the  gate  approaches  the  firmament.  During  an 
entire  year,  your  grandfather  Neriman  besieged  this  for 
tress,  the  resort  of  a  horde  of  powerful  and  audacious 
brigands,  who  ravaged  the  whole  country.  The  siege 
would  have  lasted  long  ;  for,  had  the  road  been  interrupted 
for  years,  the  inhabitants  would  still  have  wanted  nothing, 
not  even  a  blade  of  straw.  But  a  stone  was  hurled  by  the 
besiegers  upon  Neriman,  and  he  filled  his  place  on  earth 
no  more.  The  lion  of  the  war  had  ceased  to  fight.  From 
that  day,  terror  has  protected  the  castle  like  a  strong  ram 
part  ;  nobody  has  ventured  to  attack  it.  Now  the  time 
has  come  to  revenge  the  death  of  your  grandfather  ;  but  it 
must  be  done  by  stratagem.  You  are  yet  unknown  as  a 
chief ;  disguise  yourself  in  the  garb  of  a  camel-driver,  and 
cross  the  desert  with  a  troop  of  camels  laden  with  salt. 
One  load  alone  is  valuable  in  that  place.  When  unex 
pectedly  they  see  a  convoy  of  salt,  great  and  small  will 
run  to  meet  it." 

Roostam  followed  the  advice  of  his  father.  He  chose 
prudent  and  courageous  men,  inclosed  arms  in  the  cam 
els'  loads,  concealed  his  father's  club  in  a  sack  of  salt,  and, 
smiling  inwardly  at  his  concerted  plan,  departed  for  Mount 
Sipend. 

When  the  sentinel  at  the  castle  gate  beheld  the  ap 
proach  of  the  long  caravan,  which  was  winding  slowly 
round  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  he  dispatched  a  messen 
ger,  "  swift  as  the  panther,"  to  demand  the  contents  of  the 
packages.  Roostam  replied,  They  are  full  of  salt.  The 
master  of  the  castle  was  delighted  at  this,  and  instantly 
ordered  the  gates  to  be  thrown  open.  As  soon  as  they 
entered  the  bazar,  all  the  inhabitants,  men,  women,  and 
children,  surrounded  the  caravan  to  barter  for  the  salt. 
Dresses,  silver,  and  gold  were  all  offered  in  exchange  for 
this  precious  article.  But  as  soon  as  the  night  came,  and 


ROOSTAM.  289 

all  in  the  castle  slept,  Roostam  and  his  companions  threw 
off  their  camel-driver's  dresses,  and,  appearing  in  brilliant 
armor,  advanced  upon  the  fortress.  The  clang  of  weap 
ons  woke  the  governor,  but,  before  he  had  time  to  defend 
himself,  Roostam  plunged  his  Indian  sword  into  his  heart. 
There  was  no  longer  any  resistance,  and  in  an  instant  all 
was  blood  and  carnage. 

Roostam,  now  master  of  the  place,  advanced  into  the 
interior  of  the  castle  toward  an  edifice  built  of  stone,  with 
an  iron  door.  He  forced  it  open  with  a  heavy  blow  of  his 
club,  and  stood  in  bewildered  amazement  at  the  entrance 
of  a  vaulted  chamber  filled  with  all  the  treasures  of  the 
known  world.  At  this  sight  he  thus  communed  with 
himself:  "There  can  be  no  longer  any  gold  in  the  mines 
or  pearls  in  the  sea,  for  all  are  collected  here."  He  sum 
moned  his  companions,  and  they  loaded  their  camels  with 
these  rich  spoils  ;  then,  according  to  the  command  of  his 
father,  he  set  fire  to  the  castle,  and  left  only  its  ashes  on 
the  mountain,  which  had  hitherto  been  the  stronghold  of 
the  brigands.  He  then  set  out  on  his  return  to  Nimrouz. 
All  the  inhabitants  came  forth  to  meet  him  with  trum 
pets,  cymbals,  clarions,  and  Indian  bells.  Roostam,  im 
patient  to  *behold  his  mother,  rushed  to  her  apartment, 
and  endeavored  to  prostrate  himself  before  her,  but  Rou- 
dabee  raised  him  in  her  arms,  pressed  him  to  her  heart, 
and  kissed  him.  They  then  sent  a  messenger  to  announce 
this  pleasing  news  to  Sam,  and  the  intelligence  filled  his 
heart  with  exultation. 

At  this  period  of  the  life  of  Roostam  the  King  of  Persia 
died.  The  astrologers  had  foretold  the  day  when  this 
event  should  happen,  and  had  said  to  their  sovereign, 
"The  time  has  arrived  when  thou  must  leave  this  world. 
Let  us  hope  that  there  is  a  better  place  prepared  for  thee 
in  the  next.  Think,  therefore,  on  what  thou  hast  to  do, 
for  thou  must  not  depart  unprepared  for  the  journey." 
Upon  hearing  these  words,  the  schah  sent  for  his  son,  and 
gave  him  the  following  advice :  "  Power  and  majesty  are 

VOL.  T.— N 


290  ROOSTAM. 

illusive  as  the  wind  ;  set  not  your  heart  upon  them.  One 
hundred  and  twenty  years  have  passed  over  this  head, 
during  which  I  have  labored  hard  arid  suffered  much, 
though  often  I  have  experienced  great  joy,  and  the  de 
sires  of  my  heart  have  been  frequently  gratified.  I  have 
laid  the  foundations  of  many  cities,  and  built  many  for 
tresses  ;  'but  now  1  feel  as  if  I  had  never  lived,  and  the 
years  that  are  passed  are  effaced  from  my  memory.  I 
leave  you  the  throne  as  I  received  it.  This  throne  has 
seen  many  kings.  Recollect,  when  you  enjoy  it,  that  it 
will  one  day  cease  to  be  yours,  and  that  you  must  leave 
it  for  a  better  world  ;  but  your  memory  will  endure  for 
ages  :  seek  to  make  it  blessed.  There  will  exist  no  trace 
of  you  in  this  planet,  except  in  the  opinions  and  conversa 
tion  of  mankind." 

A  disastrous  war  had  broken  out  between  the  Persians 
and  the  Touranians.  The  chiefs  dispatched  a  deputation 
to  Zaboulistan  to  request  the  assistance  ofZal-zer.  Roos- 
tam,  burning  with  martial  ardor,  begged  his  father  to 
grant  him  a  war-horse  and  arms.  His  father  replied, 
"•  Thou  art  not  yet  old  enough  to  engage  in  battle  ;  thou 
art  of  an  age  to  enjoy  feasts,  music,  and  wine,  and  to  lis 
ten  to  heroic  songs.  Thou  hast  but  just  left  thy  mother's 
knee.  How,  then,  could  I  send  thee  against  the  tyrant 
Afrasiab,  the  martial  King  of  Touran  ?  No,  no  ;  thou  art 
yet  too  young  to  fight,  to  acquire  glory,  to  wrestle,  and  to 
cause  the  dust  of  the  earth  to  ascend  to  the  moon."  Roos- 
tam  replied,  "  Father,  I  love  not  feasts  and  repose  :  it 
would  be  wrong  to  allow  these  powerful  hands  and  arms, 
to  become  effeminate.  Should  a  desperate  combat  pre 
sent  itself,  God  Avill  assist  me,  and  victory  will  be  on  my 
side.  You  shall  see  me  appear  in  the  combat  upon  my 
war-horse  like  a  flame  of  fire.  I  shall  arm  myself  with 
my  club  ;  and  when  my  lance  glitters  in  the  field  of  bat 
tle,  the  earth  will  be  red  with  the  blood  of  all  who  oppose 
me.  But  I  must  have  a  horse  that  I  alone  can  catch  with 
my  bow-string — a  horse  that  will  be  strong  enough  to  bear 


ROOSTAM.  291 

my  heavy  club,  my  lofty  stature,  and  my  glory."  The  king 
was  transported  at  these  words  ;  his  whole  soul  yearned 
toward  his  son,  and  he  ceased  not  to  invoke  the  blessings 
of  God  upon  his  head. 

Zal-zer  caused  large  troops  of  wild  horses  of  every  color 
to  be  brought  before  him,  but  each  horse  that  R-oostam 
caught  and  tried  yielded  under  his  weight.  At  last  a  gray 
mare  passed  rapidly  by,  her  eyes  flashing  like  bright  pon 
iards.  A  colt  followed  her  as  large  as  herself:  its  back 
and  chest  were  as  powerful  as  those  of  its  mother ;  the 
tail  was  proudly  elevated,  and  the  hoofs  appeared  like 
steel ;  the  body  wras  dappled  with  spots  of  fire  on  a  ground 
of  gold.  This  noble  charger  resembled  an  elephant  in 
strength,  a  lion  in  vigor,  and  a  camel  in  height.  As  soon 
as  Roostarn  beheld  the  mare  and  her  colt,  he  made  a  knot 
in  his  bow-string,  and  prepared  to  separate  the  latter  from 
the  troop.  But  the  old  herdsman  thus  addressed  him: 
"  0  all-powerful  warrior !  seek  not  to  catch  that  horse  : 
it  is  well  known ;  its  name  is  Raksch.  It  is  as  rapid  as 
fire,  and  as  brilliant  as  water ;  but  as  soon  as  its  mother 
perceives  the  snare,  she  rushes  like  a  lioness  to  defend 
and  fight  for  her  offspring.  Take  care,  0  man  of  pru 
dence,  not  to  excite  this  dragon,  for,  when  once  roused  to 
the  attack,  she  would  tear  the  heart  of  a  lion  and  the  hide 
of  a  leopard." 

When  Roostam  had  heard  this  discourse,  he  made  a 
loop  in  his  bow-string,  and  threw  it  over  the  head  of  the 
colt.  The  mother  flew  at  him  with  the  fury  of  an  enraged 
elephant,  and  attempted  to  release  its  head  with  her  teeth ; 
but  Roostam  roared  like  a  savage  lion  :  the  mare,  terrified 
at  his  voice,  bounded  away,  and  fled  before  him.  Roos 
tam,  standing  firmly  on  the  ground,  stretched  forth  his 
hand,  and  placed  it  with  all  his  strength  upon  the  horse's  I 
back.  Raksch  moved  not :  it  was  evident  that  he  did/ 
not  feel  the  weight.  Roostam  cried  aloud,  "  This  is  my/ 
seat ;  now  I  shall  be  able  to  achieve  great  deeds."  H0 
then  leaped,  lightly  as  the  wind,  upon  the  back  of  Raksch/ 


292  ROOSTAM. 

and  the  flame-colored  horse  rushed  along  with  him  even 
as  if  it  were  a  battle-steed.  It  was  swift  as  a  deer,  with 
a  mouth  tender  and  overflowing  with  foam,  high  mettled, 
rounded  in  the  haunches,  full  of  sagacity,  and  of  gentle 
paces.  The  heart  of  Zal-zer  rejoiced  like  spring.  In  the 
effervescence  of  paternal  pride,  he  opened  his  treasury, 
and  distributed  gold  to  the  indigent  and  needy. 

Zal-zer  assembled  the  chiefs  and  thus  addressed  them  : 
"We  have  a  numerous  army,  but  since  the  death  of  the 
king  they  are  without  a  leader.  We  must  find  one  of  the 
race  of  the  Keianides,  that  all  may  obey  him.  I  have 
learned  from  the  astrologers  that  there  is  a  young  prince 
endowed  with  the  qualities  of  justice  and  courtesy,  named 
Keikobad,  a  descendant  of  the  great  Feridoun,  who  lives 
in  retirement  upon  Mount  Alborz.  I  will  send  Roostam 
to  seek  him ;  he  shall  bring  him  hither,  and  we  will  place 
upon  his  head  the  turquoise  crown."  He  then  gave  his 
instructions  to  Roostam,  who  prostrated  himself  to  the 
earth  before  his  father,  and,  leaping  joyfully  upon  Raksch, 
hastened  to  undertake  a  perilous  journey  across  the  prov 
inces  invaded  by  the  Touranians.  After  several  combats, 
in  all  of  which  he  was  victorious,  he  approached  Mount 
Alborz,  and  beheld  a  magnificent  palace,  surrounded  by 
beautiful  trees  and  running  streams.  A  raised  seat  was 
placed  near  the  water,  and  a  handsome  young  man  was 
seated  on  this  throne  under  the  shade  of  a  plantain-tree. 
The  spot  appeared  a  perfect  Paradise,  full  of  beauty  and 
redolent  of  perfumes. 

The  prince  was  surrounded  by  an  assembly  of  nobles 
worthy  of  a  king,  and  when  they  perceived  Roostam  in 
the  distance,  they  went  forward  to  meet  him  and  offer 
him  hospitality.  But  Roostam  answered  them,  "  0  mighty 
and  illustrious  heroes,  I  must  not  linger  here,  for  I  am 
charged  with  an  important  commission,  and  I  have  still  a 
long  and  painful  journey  to  perform.  The  frontier  is  fill 
ed  with  enemies  ;  every  family  is  in  mourning,  and  the 
throne  of  Persia  is  without  her  king,  I  must  not  taste 
wine  until  my  mission  is  accomplished." 


ROOSTAM.  293 

The  chiefs  replied,  "  Tell  us  what  you  seek  upon  Mount 
Alborz  ;  we  will  conduct  you  there,  and  during  the  jour 
ney  our  mutual  friendship  will  increase." 

Roostam  explained  that  he  was  seeking  Keikobad,  a 
prince  of  the  race  of  Feridoun.  They  smiled,  and  prom 
ised  to  conduct  Roostam  to  him.  They  then  flew  like 
the  wind  to  the  water's  side,  and  seated  themselves  under 
the  shade  of  the  large  plane-trees.  The  young  man  who 
sat  upon  the  throne  took  Roostam  by  the  hand,  filled  a 
cup  of  wine,  and  drank  in  honor  of  his  guest.  When 
Roostam  had  explained  his  object,  the  young  man  .smiled, 
and  replied,  "  0  Pelewan,  I  am  Keikobad,  and  am  wel  ac 
quainted  with  the  names  of  my  ancestors.  I  have  had  a 
dream,  in  which  I  saw  two  white  falcons  flying  toward 
me,  holding  in  their  claws  a  crown,  which  shone  like  the 
sun.  They  approached,  and  placed  this  crown  on  my 
head.  And  now,  behold,  you  are  the  falcon,  and  the 
bearer  of  a  message  concerning  the  throne  of  Persia." 

Roostam  replied,  "  Then  rise  at  once,  and  let  us  join 
the  brave  warriors  who  await  us."  They  leaped  upon 
their  war-horses,  and  set  out  with  all  their  escort,  and 
traveled  day  and  night.  On  the  road  they  encountered 
some  Touranians  dispatched  by  King  Afrasiab*  to  inter 
cept  them.  Keikobad  wished  to  rush  into  the  combat, 
but  Roostam  restrained  him.  "  Such  a  strife  is  not  wor 
thy  of  thee  ;  my  courage,  my  horse,  and  my  club  are  the 
only  comrades  I  seek,  and  I  desire  no  other  protector  than 
the  Omnipotent  Deity."  He  spoke,  and,  making  Raksch 
bound  from  the  earth,  dealt  blows  to  the  right  and  left, 
and  felled  to  the  ground  every  warrior  who  advanced 
against  him.  When  the  chief  of  the  enemy's  army  be 
held  his  companions  fall,  he  left  the  ranks,  and  advanced 
to  engage  in  single  combat ;  but  Roostam  struck  his  arms 
from  his  hands,  forced  him  from  his  saddle,  and  pierced 
him  with  his  own  lance  like  a  bird  transfixed  by  the  ar- 

*  Afrasiab  was  the  dynastic  name  of  the  kings  of  Touran,  and  de 
scended  from  son  to  son,  as  did  that  of  Pharaoh  among  the  Egyptians. 


294  ROOSTAM. 

row  of  the  hunter.  No  sooner  did  the  army  behold  their 
leader  fall  to  the  ground  like  a  vile  mass,  than  they  fled ; 
when  the  chieftains  continued  their  route,  and  arrived  at 
the  residence  of  Zal-zer,  who  received  them  with  royal 
honors,  and  placed  the  turquoise  crown  upon  the  head  of 
Keikobad.  During  eight  days  they  were  entertained  with 
great  rejoicings  and  sumptuous  banquets. 

Thus  invested  with  the  regal  power,  King  Keikobad 
hastened  to  make  the  necessary  preparations  for  war 
against  the  troops  of  Afrasiab.  He  reviewed  his  own 
forces  ;.  Roostam,  clothed  in  armor,  and  "  making  the  dust 
fly  beneath  the  feet  of  his  charger  as  if  it  were  an  en 
raged  elephant,  advanced  in  front  of  the  army,  followed 
by  the  other  chieftains.  Behind  them  rode  Keikobad  and 
Zal-zer,  one  the  emblem  of  fire,  the  other  that  of  reason. 
The  standard  of  Kiawek,  the  blacksmith,  was  carried  be 
fore  them,  and  reflected  its  brilliant  hues  of  red,  yellow, 
and  violet.  The  earth  appeared  agitated  like  a  vessel 
tossed  upon  the  waves.  Shield  upon  shield  covered 
valley  and  mountain,  resembling  a  sheet  of  silver,  and 
swords  gleamed  like  flashes  of  fire.  The  sun  shone  like 
a  sea  glittering  with  a  hundred  thousand  lamps."  "When 
the  two  armies  met  they  appeared  interminable. 

Roostam,  eager  for  the  combat,  requested  his  father  to 
point  out  to  him  the  standard  of  King  Afrasiab,  for  with 
him  he  desired  to  fight.  Zal-zer,  alarmed  at  the  peril  of 
his  son,  wished  to  dissuade  him,  and  said  that  Afrasiab 
was  as  strong  as  a  dragon,  and  that  his  anger  was  like  a 
cloud  which  sheds  devastation  on  all  around.  "His  stand 
ard,"  said  he,  "  and  his  coat  of  mail  are  black,  his  gaunt 
lets  and  his  helmet  are  iron,  the  latter  inlaid  with  gold, 
and  surmounted  by  a  plume  of  black  feathers." 

Roostam  replied,  "  Fear  not  for  me,  for  God  is  on  my 
side."  He  leaped  upon  his  horse,  the  sound  of  whose 
hoofs  echoed  far  and  near,  and  uttered  a  piercing  war- 
cry.  Afrasiab,  struck  by  his  extreme  youth,  asked  his 
name.  His  attendants  replied  that  it -was  the  son  of  the 


ROOSTAM.  295 

hero  Zal-zer,  who  wished  to  acquire  glory.  Afrasiab  ad 
vanced  toward  him  as  if  certain  of  his  prey  ;  but  Roos- 
tam,  quick  as  lightning,  slung  his  club  at  his  saddle-bow, 
and  seizing  Afrasiab  by  the  belt,  raised  him  from  his  sad 
dle  ;  but  the  leather  of  which  his  belt  was  composed  not 
being  strong  enough  \o  bear  his  weight,  broke,  and  Afra 
siab  rolled  in  the  dust.  His  officers  surrounded  him,  and, 
placing  him  upon  a  fleet  charger,  he  escaped,  leaving  his 
army  without  a  leader. 

Then  the  Persians  advanced  like  a  tempestuous  sea, 
and  dispersed  the  Touranians.  Afrasiab  returned  to  his 
father,  overwhelmed  by  his  defeat,  and  advised  him  to 
sue  for  peace,  for  Roostam  was  irresistible.  "Thou 
knowest,"  said  he,  "  that  my  arms  are  strong,  my  heart 
brave,  and  that  I  am  hardy  and  bold,  but  in  his  hand  I 
weighed  no  heavier  than  a  fly.  He  leaves  the  reins  on 
his  horse's  neck,  and  flies  over  torrents  and  precipices. 
Mountains  and  streams  are  as  nothing  in  his  path.  Thou 
knowest  that  my  ambition  is  to  possess  and  govern  all 
the  world,  but  before  him  my  strength  vanishes.  Listen 
to  wise  counsel,  and  seek  peace."  The  king,  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  appeared  deeply  astonished  at  the  words  of 
Afrasiab  ;  nevertheless,  he  selected  a  discreet  person  to 
send  to  Keikobad,  and  be  the  bearer  of  a  letter  which  he 
caused  to  be  written,  and  ornamented  with  gold  and  col 
ored  drawings  round  the  margin.  Keikobad,  clement  and 
just,  listened  to  these  proposals  of  peace,  though  his  war 
riors,  full  of  ardor,  wished  to  profit  by  their  advantages, 
and  exterminate  the  enemy.  Keikobad  said  to  them, 
"  The  elephant  fights  not  with  the  fly ;  it  is  not  just,  and 
God  would  visit  us  with  some  misfortune.  Let  us  never 
commit  an  action  that  may  cause  him  to  withdraw  his 
protection." 

The  valor  of  Roostam  having  thus  produced  the  term 
ination  of  the  war,  the  king,  upon  his  return  to  the  capi 
tal,  prepared  presents  for  Zal-zer  and  his  son.  They 
placed  upon  five  elephants  litters  embroidered  in  gold  and 


396  ROOSTAM. 

turquoise,  and  in  these  litters  warlike  weapons  inlaid  with 
precious  stones  and  metals.  Keikobad  wrote  thus  :  "  I 
would  that  it  were  in  my  power  to  make  you  a  more  val 
uable  present ;  but,  should  my  life  be  prolonged,  you  will 
have  nothing  to  wish  for  in  this  world." 

Keikobad,  having  restored  peace  to  his  kingdom,  trav-.. 
eled  for1  ten  years  over  his  vast  territories,  dispensing 
every  where  justice  and  mercy.  He  said,  "  If  any  one  is 
too  poor  to  enjoy  life,  my  fortune  is  his,  and  belongs  to  all 
those  who.  are  under  my  protection."  At  length,  when  he 
felt  death  approaching,  he  called  his  son  Kaous,  who  was 
to  succeed  him,  and  spoke  long  upon  the  themes  of  justice 
and  liberality.  "  Foolish  are  those,"  said  he,  "  who  love 
this  life.  As  for  myself,  I  leave  it  such  as  I  was  when  I 
arrived  from  Mount  Alborz  to  take  possession  of  the  throne. 
If  you  are  a  just  man,  and  your  intentions  are  pure,  you 
will  receive  your  reward  in  another  world  ;  but  if  you  al 
low  evil  passions  to  gain  the  mastery,  and  draw  your 
sword  unjustly  from  its  scabbard,  then  your  days  will  be 
come  like  a  consuming  fire,  and  your  heart  will  be  filled 
with  bitterness."  He  spoke  thus,  and  not  long  after  left 
his  palace  for  the  grave. 

"When  Kaous  succeeded  his  father,  and  saw  the  vast 
treasures  of  many  kinds  which  he  had  accumulated,  and 
the  entire  world  tributary  and  subject  to  his  power,  "  pride 
banished  from  his  heart  the  dictates  of  justice."  He 
thought  of  nothing  but  of  drinking  and  gaming,  and  fol 
lowed  not  in  the  footsteps  of  his  sire.  Weak-minded  and 
full  of  vanity,  he  suffered  himself  to  be  engaged  in  the 
most  unjust  and  disastrous  wars  ;  he  refused  to  listen  to 
the  advice  of  either  Zal-zer  or  Roostam,  and  all  the  prow 
ess  of  these  great  warriors  was  scarcely  sufficient  to  re 
pair  the  mistakes  of  Kaous,  and  deliver  him  from  the 
thraldom  into  which  his  evil  courses  had  surrendered  him. 
He  passed  his  time  in  carousing  and  feasting  with  musi 
cians  and  dancers  ;  disgusted  with  enjoyment,  he  was  in 
cessantly  seeking  new  pleasures.  It  happened  one  day, 


ROOSTAM.  297 

when  he  was  partaking  of  wine  in  a  jessamine  bower,  that 
a  stranger  minstrel  was  announced,  who  desired  to  play 
before  the  king.  The  king  eagerly  ordered  him  to  be  ad 
mitted,  for  'he  was  pleased  at  the  idea  of  any  novelty. 
Now  this  minstrel  was  a  spy  sent  by  the  rival  king  of 
Mazenderan  to  tempt  the  weakness  and  vanity  of  Kaous. 
He  was  skilled  in  his  art,  and  sang  with  great  taste  a  song 
upon  the  beauties  of  Mazenderan  : 

"  Far-famed  is  Mazenderan,  my  country  ;  the  rose  ceases 
not  to  bloom  in  its  gardens  ;  hyacinths  and  tulips  cover 
its  mountains.  The  air  is  sweet;  the  earth  is  painted 
with  flowers.  There  is  neither  heat  nor  cold  :  an  eternal 
spring  reigns,  without  interval  or  change. 

"  The  nightingale  sings  in  the  gardens  ;  the  fawn  courses 
in  the  valley.  Delicious  perfumes  spread  their  odors  all 
around.  The  banks  of  the  rivulets  are  ever  smiling;  the 
rivers  are  like  streams  of  rose-water.  In  summer  and  in 
winter,  in  spring  and  in  autumn,  the  earth  is  covered  with 
fruits  and  flowers,  and  the  falcon  is  ever  ready  for  the 
chase. 

"  The  people  are  clothed  in  brocade  and  jewels  of  gold. 
Slaves,  beautiful  as  idols,  wear  golden  crowns  upon  their 
heads.  He  who  has  not  the  happiness  to  live  in  this 
country  can  not  rejoice  in  having  fulfilled  the  desires  of 
his  soul." 

The  spirit  of  Kaous  was  saddened  at  these  words.  Up 
to  this  moment  he  had  thought  himself  the  greatest  mon 
arch  upon  earth.  Weariness  and  jealousy  took  possession 
of  his  heart,  and  he  resolved  to  conquer  this  marvelous 
country  of  Mazenderan. 

When  the  Persian  chiefs  ascertained  the  insane  desire 
of  their  king,  who  was  about  to  engage  in  an  unjust  war, 
they  instantly  dispatched  a  messenger  upon  a  fleet  drom 
edary  to  Zal-zer  and  Roostam,  well  thinking  that  they 
alone  had  power  enough  over  Kaous  to  bend  him  from 
his  fatal  project.  But,  obstinate  as  vain,  he  turned  a  deaf 
ear  to  their  counsels,  and  they  quitted  his  presence  with 

N  2 


298  ROOSTAM. 

I 

sorrowful  hearts,  foreseeing  all  the  evils  that  were  likely 
to  ensue. 

Mazenderan  was  situated  in  the  centre  of  the  country 
of  the  Giants.  Their  chief,  called  the  "White  Dive,  lived 
in  the  mountains,  and  only  descended  to  the  plains  when 
the  king  claimed  his  assistance.  His  enormous  size  and 
prodigious  strength  inspired  terror  in  his  enemies,  and  a 
blind  confidence  in  the  soldiers  of  Mazenderan.  Kaous 
experienced  a  complete  defeat,  and  was  taken  prisoner, 
with  his  principal  chiefs,  and  thrown  into  a  dungeon. 
The  giant  smote  them  with  blindness,  and  said  to  the 
King  of  Mazenderan,  "  I  do  not  wish  to  kill  King  Kaous, 
because  adversity  will  render  him  wise,  and  his  example 
will  in  future  deter  all  other  sovereigns  from  making  any 
attack  upon  Mazenderan."  Kaous  found  the  means -of 
sending  a  message,  "  prompt  as  a  bird  in  its  swiftest  flight," 
to  Zal-zer,  the  revered  chief  of  the  Persians,  informing  him 
of  his  misfortune,  and  accusing  himself  as  the  cause  of  all 
these  evils  in  having  neglected  his  counsel. 

The  prudent  Zal-zer  refrained  from  communicating  to 
any  one  the  news  of  the  defeat  and  imprisonment  of  the 
king,  fearing  to  excite  a  revolt  in  the  tributary  provinces, 
for  he  knew  how  much  the  authority  of  Kaous  had  been 
weakened  by  this  rash  war.  He  concerted  a  plan  with 
Roostam  alone  to  go  secretly  to  Mazenderan,  and  to  at 
tempt  the  liberation  of  their  sovereign. 

This  perilous  journey,  and  the  wonderful  achievements 
of  Roostam's  horse,  form  the  most  popular  portion  of  our 
hero's  adventures,  somewhat  analogous  to  the  labors  of 
Hercules  among  the  Greeks.  This  legend  we  shall  now 
proceed  to  relate. 

Roostam  departed  alone  to  deliver  King  Kaous  from  his 
prison  at  Mazenderan.  He  traveled  day  and  night,  tak 
ing  the  most  dangerous,  the  least  frequented,  but  the  short 
est  road.  He  came  to  a  meadow  where  some  wild  asses 
were  grazing,  and,  being  hungry,  killed  one  and  roasted  it 


ROOSTAM.  299 

upon  a  fire  of  small  sticks.  He  took  off  the  bridle  of 
Raksch,  and  composed  himself  to  rest  in  a  field  of  reeds. 
In  the  middle  of  the  night,  a  lion  of  the  desert,  seeing  a 
man  asleep  and  a  horse  at  liberty  near  him,  attempted  to 
spring  upon  the  latter ;  but  Raksch  rushed  like  fire  toward 
him,  raised  his  fore  feet,  struck  the  lion  upon  the  head,  and 
seized  him  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  in  his  teeth.  After  a 
furious  combat,  Raksch  killed  the  lion.  Roostam,  awaken 
ed  by  the  noise,  patted  his  horse,  and  said  to  him,  "  Oh, 
imprudent  animal,  if  you  had  fallen  into  his  clutches,  how 
could  I  have  achieved  my  mission  ?"  He  then  returned 
thanks  to  Heaven  for  the  mercies  which  had  been  shown 
to  him. 

Roostam  had  a  difficult  path  before  him  ;  it  lay  through 
a  desert  without  springs,  and  where  the  air  was  so  hot 
that  the  very  birds  fell  dead  upon  the  burning  sands.  It 
might  be  said  that  fire  passed  over  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Horse  and  rider  were  both  exhausted.  The  hero  alight 
ed  from  his  charger,  unable  longer  to  resist  the  heat  arid 
thirst,  and  fell  upon  the  ground,  turning  his  eyes  to  heav 
en,  and  crying  aloud,  "  0  God,  if  it  is  thy  pleasure  that  I 
should  suffer,  I  am  content  to  do  so  and  to  leave  this  world ; 
but  I  did  hope  that  the  Almighty  would  make  use  of  my 
arm  as  the  instrument  by  which  King  Kaous  should  be 
set  at  liberty,  and  therefore  I  will  still  struggle  to  preserve 
existence." 

At  this  instant  a  ram  passed  the  spot  where  Roostam 
lay.  "  Where,"  thought  he,  "  can  this  animal  find  water  ? 
Certainly  God  has  heard  my  prayer."  And,  following  the 
ram  with  his  eye,  he  perceived  the  source  of  a  clear  and 
limpid  stream.  "  "When  in  any  difficulty,"  says  the  poet, 
"  from  whom  can  we  seek  assistance  but  from  God  ?"  and 
he  who  forsakes  his  Maker,  the  only  giver  of  good  things, 
is  destitute  of  reason  and  wisdom.  After  returning  thanks 
to  Heaven,  he  took  offRaksch's  saddle,  washed  him  until 
he  shone  like  the  sun,  and  then,  having  bathed  himself,  he 
lay  down  to  sleep. 


300  ROOSTAM. 

As  he  slept,  a  tiger  issued  from  the  desert.  Raksch  ran 
toward  his  master,  struck  the  ground  with  his  feet,  and 
lashed  his  tail.  Roostam  awoke  and  looked  around,  but 
the  tiger  had  disappeared ;  he  scolded  Raksch,  and  again 
lay  down  to  sleep.  The  tiger  reappeared  from  his  den,  and 
Raksch  tore  up  the  ground  with  violent  plunges.  Roos 
tam  awoke  again,  pale  with  anger,  and  reproached  his 
horse  ;  tut,  not  being  able  to  discover  any  thing  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  he  once  more  slept  for  the  third  time. 
Again  the  tiger  approached,  and  Raksch,  equally  terrified 
by  the  savage  animal  and  the  anger  of  Roostam,  fled;  but 
his  attachment  to  his  master  soon  induced  him  to  return 
with  the  rapidity  of  the  wind,  neighing  and  striking  the 
ground  with  his  iron  hoofs.  The  monster  was  not  now 
concealed,  but  sprang  upon  Roostam.  When  Raksch  saw 
the  hero  attacked,  he  threw  back  his  ears  and  tore  with 
his  teeth  the  shoulder  of  the  tiger,  who  instantly  turned 
upon  him.  Roostam,  taking  advantage  of  the  moment, 
struck  the  tiger  with  his  sword,  and  separated  the  head 
from  the  body. 

On  the  following  day  Roostam  entered  the  country  ruled 
over  by  the  magicians.  He  perceived,  close  at  hand,  un 
der  some  trees  and  by  the  side  of  a  fountain,  a  repast  al 
ready  prepared,  and  a  lyre  lying  on  the  ground.  In  aston 
ishment  he  took  the  lyre,  and  drew  from  it  some  sounds 
which  reached  the  ear  of  a  young  and  beautiful  female 
magician,  who  approached  him  and  seated  herself  by  his 
side.  Roostam,  not  knowing  what  to  think  of  this  appa 
rition,  addressed  a  prayer  to  God,  and  invoking  his  pro 
tection,  presented  a  cup  of  wine  to  the  young  damsel ;  but 
as  soon  as  the  name  of  the  Deity  was  pronounced,  she 
changed  countenance  and  disappeared  in  the  forest.  Re 
turning  thanks  to  the  Almighty  for  his  escape  from  this 
great  danger,  he  continued  his  journey  by  night  and  day. 

At  length  he  reached  a  beautiful  country,  covered  with 
verdure  and  flowers,  and  determined  to  seek  a  short  re 
pose.  Now  the  guardians  of  these  fields,  seeing  Raksch 


ROOSTAM.  301 

grazing  at  liberty,  tried  to  catch  him  with  a  thong,  but 
Raksch  bounded  toward  his  master,  who  instantly  awoke 
and  resented  the  insult.  The  men  fled,  and  told  the  mighty 
Aulad,  governor  of  the  country,  that  a  strange  adventurer 
had  pillaged  his  crops  and  ill  treated  his  servants.  Aulad 
set  out  with  his  suite  and  a  chosen  troop  of  brave  men  to 
attack  Roostam,  but  he  was  already  in  the  saddle,  and  his 
Indian  sword  was  drawn  in  his  hand.  "  He  rushed  at 
them  like  a  thunderbolt,"  aiming  at  the  first  who  barred 
his  passage,  and  their  heads  rolled  in  the  dust;  the  others 
fled.  Roostam  twisted  his  snare  sixty  times  round  his 
arm,  and  threw  it  at  Aulad,  whose  head  was  caught  in  the 
loop.  Roostam  tightened  the  thong,  unhorsed  him,  and 
threw  him  to  the  ground  ;  but  he  abstained  from  killing 
him,  as  he  wished  to  profit  by  his  knowledge  of  the  coun 
try.  He  therefore  told  him  that  if  he  would  act  as  a  faith 
ful  guide  in  the  enterprise  he  was  about  to  undertake,  he 
would  place  the  crown  of  Mazenderan  on  his  head  ;  but  on 
the  least  appearance  of  cowardice  or  treachery,  he  would 
pierce  him  to  the  heart. 

Aulad,  happy  that  his  life  was  spared,  and  filled  with 
respect  for  Roostam,  and  his  great  deeds  of  which  he  had 
been  witness,  promised  to  conduct  him  to  the  prison  where 
KingKaous  and  the  Persians  were  confined,  near  the  abode 
of  the  giant  called  the  White  Dive  ;  but,  at  the  same  time, 
he  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  this  bold  enterprise  by  re 
lating  the  dangers  he  would  have  to  encounter.  Roostam 
was  only  more  eager  to  advance,  not  wishing  the  report  of 
his  exploits  to  reach  Mazenderan  before  he  had  accom 
plished  his  end  by  delivering  the  king.  He  released  Au 
lad  from  the  thong ;  and  making  him  precede,  followed 
him  joyfully  day  and  night,  without  repose,  across  mount 
ains  and  plains. 

After  a  long  march,  he  heard  the  sound  of  kettle-drums 
and  warlike  music,  and  beheld  a  thousand  fires  which  il 
lumined  the  night.  He  saw  that  he  had  arrived  at  Ma 
zenderan.  The  magicians  placed  a  watch  upon  the  walls, 


302  ROOSTAM. 

and  passed  the  night  in  feasting.  Roostam  fell  unawares 
upon  the  guard,  and  killing  their  chief,  advanced  into  the 
city.  Raksch  neighed  so  loudly  that  King  Kaous  called 
out  from  the  depths  of  his  prison,  "  My  misfortunes  are 
over ;  no  other  horse  than  Roostam 's  could  utter  such  a 
cry."  The  chiefs  who  shared  his  captivity  looked  at  him, 
and  said,  "  The  king  has  lost  his  reason  ;  misfortune  has 
driven  him  mad."  But,  at  the  same  moment,  Roostam, 
assisted  by  Aulad,  entered  the  prison.  Kaous  embraced 
him  ;  and  all  returned  thanks  to  Heaven  who  had  provi 
ded  this  deliverer. 

But  Roostam  knew  that  his  task  was  not  yet  accomplish 
ed,  for  as  long  as  the  chief  of  the  giants  lived,  there  were 
no  means  of  freeing  the  prisoners  from  his  power  and  con 
veying  them  out  of  the  country.  He  delayed  not  an  in 
stant,  not  even  to  partake  in  their  joy  ;  and  advising  them 
to  be  prudent,  he  departed  with  his  guide  for  the  giant's 
mountain.  When  he  perceived  at  some  distance  an  open 
cavern,  the  abode  of  the  White  Dive,  guarded  by  a  large 
army,  he  stopped  to  consult  Aulad,  who,  terrified  at  his  ap 
parent  temerity,  said  that,  even  if  he  were  made  of  iron, 
he  could  not  resist  these  adversaries.  Roostam,  however, 
was  not  to  be  deterred  from  his  enterprise,  and  replied 
that  he  had  consulted  him  solely  for  the  purpose  of  learn 
ing  the  most  suitable  hour  for  the  attack.  Aulad  said, 
"  At  noon,  when  the  sun  is  at  its  height,  the  giant  sleeps 
in  the  back  of  his  cavern,  and  his  subjects  repose  at  the 
entrance.  If  God  should  endow  Roostam  with  supernat 
ural  strength,  he  might  then  endeavor  to  surprise*them." 

Roostam  received  this  advice  joyfully,  and  took  off  his 
armor,  that  he  might  seek  repose  until  the  appointed  hour 
arrived.  As  soon  as  the  sun  had  closed  the  cups  of  the 
flowers,  and  the  buzz  of  insects  was  heard  all  around,  he 
rose,  resumed  his  shield  and  helmet,  and  armed  himself 
with  his  sword.  He  tied  Aulad  to  a  tree,  and  advanced 
alone  to  the  cavern.  Arrived  at  the  entrance,  he  uttered 
a  cry  resembling  a  thunder-clap,  and  struck  off  the  heads 


ROOSTAM. 


303 


of  the  sleeping  guards.  The  few  who  escaped  his  blows 
sought  refuge  in  flight.  Roostam  entered  the  interior  of 
the  rock  ;  for  some  moments  he  could  distinguish  nothing, 
so  dark  and  deep  was  the  cavern  ;  but  when  his  eyes  be 
came  accustomed  to  the  obscurity,  he  perceived  an  enor 
mous  mass,  like  a  rock,  lying  on  the  ground.  The  giant's 
hair  resembled  the  mane  of  a  lion  ;  his  length  and  breadth 
entirely  filled  the  space.  Then  ensued  a  terrific  combat ; 
never  had  Roostam  been  in  such  peril,  and  the  giant  him 
self  had  never  before  encountered  such  a  formidable  ad 
versary.  Roostam  avoided  a  large  fragment  of  rock  which 
the  giant  hurled  at  him,  and  struck  in  return  so  sharp  a 
blow  with  his  sword  that  he  cut  off  one  of  the  giant's  legs. 
This  desperate  struggle  continued  for  a  long  time  ;  the 
earth  was  saturated  with  blood.  "  But  God  gave  strength 
and  courage  to  Roostam,  who  vanquished  his  enemy,  and 
opened  his  side  that  he  might  take  out  his  heart ;  for  a 
few  drops  of  blood  poured  into  the  eyes  of  the  king  and 
his  companions  in  captivity  would  restore  their  sight."* 

The  whole  army  of  the  Dives  fled  when  they  beheld 
their  chief  conquered  and  slain.  Roostam  released  Aulad, 
and  returned  hastily  to  Kaous,  to  set  him  and  his  compan 
ions  at  liberty.  Having  restored  their  sight,  he  reclothed 
Kaous  in  his  royal  garments,  that  he  might  return  to  his 
country  in  a  manner  becoming  a  king  entering  his  own 
dominions,  and  not  as  a  captive  recently  delivered  from 
his  chains. 

Kaous  addressed  a  wise  and  temperate  letter  to  the 
King  of  Mazenderan,  calling  upon  him  to  submit  and  ren 
der  homage,  stating  that  he  had  only  wished  to  destroy 
the  magicians  who  believed  not  in  God.  This  letter  he 
dispatched  by  an  active  and  intelligent  messenger.  When 
the  envoy  arrived  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  the  mon 
arch  caused  the  letter  to  be  perfumed  with  musk  and  am 
ber,  and  sent  for  a  sage  to  interpret  to  him  the  contents. 

*  It  may  be  observed  that  this  Persian  tradition  resembles  in  a  re 
mote  degree  the  history  of  Tobit. 


304  .     ROOSTAM. 

But  his  heart  was  filled  -with  vengeance  against  Kaous, 
He  would  listen  to  no  advice,  and  replied,  "  I  have  here 
at  my  command  1,000,000  of  warriors  and  1200  elephants, 
such  as  you  have  never  seen  before.  I  will  conduct  a  for 
midable  army  against  you,  and  will  scatter  the  dust  of  de 
struction  around." 

When,  the  messenger  returned  to  Kaous  with  these 
words  of  defiance,  Roostam  requested  the  king  to  suffer 
himself  to  be  the  bearer  of  another  message.  "  The  scribe 
pointed  his  reed  pen  until  it  became  sharp  as  the  end  of 
an  arrow,"  and  wrote  as  the  king  dictated.  "  The  words 
that  you  have  conveyed  to  me  are  vain,  and  become  not 
the  lips  of  a  reasonable  man.  Divest  yourself  of  this  ar 
rogance,  and  submit  to  my  power.  If  not,  I  will  cover  the 
space  from  sea  to  sea  with  my  armies,  and  the  vultures 
shall  receive  you  for  their  prey."  The  king,  having  seal 
ed  this  letter  with  his  signet,  gave  it  to  Roostam,  who  set 
out  in  the  guise  of  a  simple  courier. 

When  he  arrived  in  front  of  the  army  of  Mazenderan, 
in  order  at  the  same  time  to  preserve  the  appearance  of  a 
messenger  of  peace,  and  by  his  great  strength  to  inspire 
respect  in  those  who  came  to  meet  him  with  suspicious 
and  malevolent  looks,  he  seized  a  tree  with  large  branch 
es  which  stood  in  his  path,  tore  it  with  one  hand  from  the 
earth,  and  poised  it  like  a  javelin,  to  the  great  astonish 
ment  of  the  chiefs  of  the  opposing  host.  Then  he  cast  it 
contemptuously  on  one  side  far  from  him,  and  in  its  fall 
the  branches  struck  several  strong  horsemen  to  the  ground. 
One  of  the  nobles  of  Mazenderan,  renowned  for  his 
strength,  advanced  to  take  the  hand  of  Roostam,  apparent 
ly  in  token  of  friendship,  but  in  reality  to  compress  it  with 
a  force  which  he  hoped  would  intimidate  the  messenger. 
Roostam  smiled,  and  wringing  the  warrior's  hand  in  his 
turn,  caused  him  to  turn  pale  and  fall  insensible  from  his 
horse.  The  king,  astonished  at  what  was  related  to  him 
concerning  this  messenger  from  Kaous,  sent  for  him  into 
his  presence,  and  offered  him  most  magnificent  gifts  ;  but 


ROOSTAM.  305 

Roostam  refused  to  accept  them  ;  and  seeing  the  king  in 
flamed  with  anger  at  the  letter,  and  that  he  was  not  in 
clined  for  peace,  he  returned  to  Kaous,  eager  for  venge 
ance. 

A  furious  battle  lasted  seven  days  between  the  two  ar 
mies.  Finally  Roostam  gained  the  victory.  He  killed 
the  King  of  Mazenderan,  whose  treasures  were  collected 
and  heaped  up  as  a  mountain  before  King  Kaous,  who  di 
vided  them  among  his  soldiers,  according  to  the  deserts  of 
each.  He  then  ordered  that  prayers  should  be  said  for 
seven  days,  as  an  act  of  thanksgiving  for  the  seven  victo 
ries  which  he  had  gained.  On  the  eighth  day  he  caused 
all  the  poor  in  the  kingdom  to  be  assembled  together,  and 
alms  were  largely  distributed.  He  established  Aulad  upon 
the  throne,  in  order  to  fulfill  the  promise  of  Roostam,  and 
departed  with  his  army  for  his  own  capital. 

Kaous  prepared  for  Roostam  a  present  worthy  of  his 
services.  A  throne  ornamented  with  turquoises  and 
rams'  heads  in  gold  ;  a  royal  crown  enriched  with  pre 
cious  stones  ;  a  cushion  of  brocade  ;  a  bracelet ;  a  gold 
chain;  100  female  slaves,  richly  dressed;  100  armed 
men;  and  100  horses  caparisoned  with  gold  and  silver; 
100  black  mules;  a  purse  containing  100  gold  pieces; 
cups  of  ruby  and  turquoise  filled  with  perfumes ;  and, 
finally,  a  letter  of  investiture  giving  him  possession  of 
Nimrouz  and  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  south.  Roostam, 
laden  with  these  honors,  returned  to  his  father  Zal-zer. 

The  restless  spirit  of  Kaous  would  not  permit  him  to 
remain  long  in  repose.  He  declared  war  against  the  King 
of  Hamaveran,  and  at  first  was  successful  ;  but  the  king 
contrived  a  snare  to  entrap  him.  He  excited  a  violent 
passion  in  the  heart  of  Kaous  for  his  daughter  Zoudabee. 
Kaous  consented  to  marry  her  and  proclaim  her  queen, 
above  all  his  other  wives,  although  the  first  of  these  had 
already  presented  him  a  son  named  Sciawousche,  whose 
education  had  been  confided  to  Roostam. 

When  the  King  of  Hamaveran  had  enticed  Kaous  and 


306  ROOSTAM. 

his  warriors  into  his  own  palace,  he  made  them  prisoners 
and  confined  them  in  a  fortress.  The  Persians,  as  usual, 
again  besought  the  aid  of  Zal-zer  and  Roostam.  "  The 
heart  of  Roostam,  eager  for  combat,  flamed  like  a  consum 
ing  fire."  He  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  Persian 
army,  to  undertake  the  second  time  the  deliverance  of 
King  Kaous. 

As  the  journey  by  land  was  long,  Roostam  embarked, 
and  reached  the  kingdom  of  Hamaveran  by  sea. 

"  When  his  army  landed,  neither  mountains  nor  plains 
were  visible.  The  whole  earth  was  covered  with  armor 
and  cuirasses,  and  the  stars  appeared  to  borrow  their  lustre 
fram  the  points  of  the  lances.  There  were  so  many  glit 
tering  helmets,  burnished  shields,  and  brilliant  battle-axes, 
that  the  ground  itself  appeared  like  a  sheet  of  molten  gold. 
The  rocks  were  rent  asunder  by  the  noise  of  the  trumpets, 
and  the  earth  shook  under  the  trampling  of  the  horses'  feet. 
The  sound  of  drums,  clarions,  and  cjrnbals  resounded  from 
one  camp  to  the  other.  The  champions  started  forward 
from  the  ranks,  threw  the  reins  over  their  horses'  necks,  dip 
ped  in  gall  the  points  of  their  lances,  and,  lowering  their 
heads  to  the  pommels  of  their  saddles,  shouted  their  eager 
war  cry.  The  battle  was  so  furious  that  it  might  be  said 
a  crimson  shower  rained  upon  the  dark-colored  earth. 
Terror  seized  the  Touranians  at  the  appearance  of  this  un 
expected  army,  and,  above  all,  when  they  beheld  Roostam, 
with  '  a  body  powerful  as  that  of  an  elephant.'  They  had 
summoned  to  their  assistance  the  warriors  of  Egypt  and 
Barbary,  and  thus  Roostam  had  three  hosts  to  contend  with 
at  the  same  time  ;  but  he  triumphed  over  all.  The  auxil 
iaries  submitted  and  went  over  to  the  Persian  side.  The 
king  was  liberated,  and,  accompanied  by  Zoudabee,  re 
turned  to  his  kingdom." 

King  Kaous  took  advantage  of  this  interval  of  peace  to 
restore  the  splendor  of  his  throne,  and  construct  several 
magnificent  edifices  upon  Mount  Alborz,  that  the  conquer 
ed  giants  might  be  forced  to  work,  and  thus  rendered  harm- 


ROOSTAM.  307 

less ;  and  also  to  reap  the  benefit  of  their  knowledge,  for 
it  was  supposed  that  they  were  acquainted  with  all  the 
hidden  secrets  of  nature.  Kaous  caused  them  to  build  a 
crystal  palace,  inlaid  with  emeralds,  as  a  chosen  residence 
wherein  to  hold  his  banquets  and  high  festivals.  He  made 
them  hew  stables  for  the  horses  and  dromedaries  in  the 
solid  rock,  supported  by  stone  pillars  and  steel  railings. 
He  then  compelled  them  to  erect  a  building  with  a  dome 
of  onyx,  and  there  established  a  celebrated  magus,  that  the 
occult  sciences  might  not  be  forever  lost  in  this  place.  Fi 
nally,  he  constructed  for  the  royal  abode  a  palace  composed 
of  gold  and  silver  ingots,  inlaid  with  turquoises  and  rubies. 
Beautiful  gardens  surrounded  the  building  ;  and  the  climate 
was  so  mild,  that  an  eternal  spring  caused  the  roses  to 
bloom  throughout  the  year. 

But  Ariman,  chief  of  the  Dives,  wished  to  destroy  Kaous, 
and  deliver  his  subjects  from  his  harsh  government.  Un 
der  different  disguises  he  approached  the  king  and  inflamed 
his  vanity,  persuading  him  that,  in  order  to  become  supe 
rior  to  all  the  monarchs  on  earth,  he  should  ascend  to 
heaven,  and  hover  at  his  will  above  the  rest  of  mankind. 
Kaous,  full  of  this  idea,  slept  neither  day  nor  night.  "  How 
could  he  fly  without  wings  ?"  "  Should  he  not  have  known," 
says  the  poet,  "  that  no  mortal  can  reach  the  skies  ?  God  re 
quires  not  worldly  aid ;  He  alone  is  omnipotent,  and  all  cre 
ation  must  submit  to  his  will.  Earth  and  heaven,  0  man, 
were  created  for  thy  use,  but  heaven  is  above  thy  flight !" 

The  foolish  Kaous  assembled  his  magicians.  Ariman 
had  gained  a  conquest  over  his  weak  mind.  They  invent 
ed  a  plan  by  which  King  Kaous  might  ascend  into  the  air. 
This  was,  that  four  young  eagles,  brought  up  in  darkness, 
should  be  fastened  to  the  throne  on  which  the  king  was 
seated.  The  eagles,  as  soon  as  they  beheld  the  light,  flew 
instantly,  as  swift  as  arrows,  over  the  summits  of  the  high 
est  mountains  ;  but,  becoming  weary  with  their  flight,  and 
impatient  of  their  heavy  burden,  they  fell  down  upon  a 
rock,  leaving  Kaous  stunned  and  dislocated  by  his  fall. 


308  ROOSTAM. 

Roostam  and  the  other  nobles  set  out  in  pursuit  of  the 
king.  After  a  long-  search,  they  found  him  lying  at  full 
length,  exhausted,  upon  the  ground.  They  overwhelmed 
him  with  reproaches,  and  recalled  to  him  the  errors  of  his 
past  life,  particularly  this  last  act,  in  which  he  revolted 
against  God  himself,  who  had  thus  signally  punished  him. 

Kaous  was  filled  with  shame  and  humility  ;  and  upon 
his  return  to  his  palace  he  remained  forty  days  prostrate 
before  the  Deity,  praying  for  grace  and  pardon  ere  he  ven 
tured  to  reascend  his- throne.  This  adventure  of  Kaous  is 
evidently  one  of  the  allegories  recorded  by  Firdousi.  It 
closely  resembles  the  fable  of  Icarus,  and  presents  a  sim 
ilar  type  of  the  punishment  of  overweening  pride. 

I  pass  over  several  of  Roostarn's  great  achievements  in 
war,  to  arrive  at  the  most  affecting  portion  of  his  history. 
Firdousi  commences  thus  : 

"  Listen  to  a  recital  which  will  cause  tears  to  flow. 
"When  the  wind  blows  from  afar,  and  scatters  the  fruit  to 
the  ground  before  it  arrives  at  maturity,  shall  we  pronounce 
the  judgment  just  or  unjust  ?  If  death  is  inevitable,  what 
injustice  is  there  in  its  infliction  ?  Mind  can  not  solve  this 
mystery,  nor  pierce  this  vail.  All  must  pass  through  the 
gate  which  never  reopens  to  suffer  their  return.  But  if  it 
is  true  that  in  dying  we  gain  a  better  home,  then  ought 
the  young  and  brave  to  bless  death  in  their  hearts.  If  the 
fire  burns  when  lighted,  does  it  create  astonishment  ?  The 
breath  of  death  is  like  a  devouring  fire  ;  it  spares  neither 
young  nor  old.  Youth  and  age  are  both  alike  when  they 
arrive  at  the  term  fixed  as  the  limit  of  their  existence. 
Devote  thyself  to  worship  and  prayer.  Prepare  for  the 
last  day,  and  thou  wilt  never  rebel  against  the  will  of 
God." 

One  day,  Roostam,  carried  away  by  the  ardor  of  the 
chase,  entered  an  enemy's  country ;  but  the  King  of  Se- 
mengan  desired  not  to  enter  into  a  quarrel  with  the  Per 
sian  hero.  He  invited  him  to  his  palace  and  loaded  him 
with  honors.  Roostam  beheld  the  king's  daughter,  and 


ROOSTAM.  309 

fell  at  once  in  love.  He  married  her ;  but,  not  daring  to 
announce  his  union  with  the  daughter  of  a  hostile  race,  he 
left  her  with  her  father,  bestowing  upon  her  immense  treas 
ures,  and  among  them  a  bracelet,  ornamented  with  a  price 
less  onyx,  which  she  was  to  place  on  the  arm  of  their  first 
born  child. 

Roostam,  sorely  grieved  at  leaving  his  young  wife,  re 
turned  to  his  own  country.  At  the  end  of  nine  months, 
Theminee  gave  birth  to  a  son,  beautiful  as  an  angel,  and 
exactly  resembling  Roostam.  Theminee  said  to  herself, 
"  When  Roostam  hears  that  I  have  borne  him  a  son,  he 
will  come  and  take  him  from  my  arms,  and  I  shall  be  for 
ever  deprived  of  the  light  of  my  eyes."  She  dispatched 
a  message  to  Zaboulistan,  saying  that  she  was  delivered 
of  a  daughter,  who  should  be  brought  up  like  the  offspring 
of  a  king.  Roostam  sent  the  messenger  back  laden  with 
presents  for  the  mother ;  but,  believing  the  child  to  be  a 
female,  he  thought  no  more  about  her.  Daughters  in  the 
Eastern  harems  are  little  better  than  slaves.  It  is  only  by 
marriage  they  gain  some  importance,  as  the  pledges  of  al 
liance  between  neighboring  courts. 

Fifteen  years  passed  on.  Zohrab,  the  son  of  Roostam, 
grew  into  a  colossus  of  strength  and  a  lion  of  courage  ;  but, 
in  addition  to  these  endowments,  he  possessed  a  generous 
and  tender  disposition.  He  told  his  mother  that  he  had  an 
internal  conviction  that  he  belonged  not  to  the  race  of  Se- 
mengan,  for  he  felt  himself  superior  to  all  the  descendants 
of  that  family.  He  besought  Theminee  to  reveal  his  true 
origin.  When  he  learned  that  he  was  the  son  of  Roostam, 
he  drew  himself  up  in  happy  pride,  and  dreamed  of  nothing 
but  wars  and  conquests.  He  wished  to  place  the  crowns 
of  Persia  and  Touran  combined  upon  the  heads  of  Roostam 
and  Theminee.  His  mother  trembled  lest  in  the  ardor  of 
youth  he  should  boast  of  his  descent,  and  that  the  tyrant 
Afrasiab,  king  of  Touran,  might  compass  his  destruction 
from  the  hatred  he  bore  his  father.  But  Afrasiab,  be 
lieving  him  to  be  the  son  of  his  ally,  the  King  of  Semen- 


310  ROOSTAM. 

gan,  placed  in  Zohrab  all  his  hopes  of  conquering  the  Per 
sians.  He  invested  him  with  an  important  command,  and 
sent  him  with  a  formidable  army  against  the  Persian  fron 
tiers.  These  frontiers  were  defended  by  a  fortress  which 
overlooked  the  plain.  Zohrab  fought  with  the  governor 
Hedgir,  and  unhorsed  him.  Hedgir  sued  for  mercy,  and 
Zohrab,  as  generous  as  brave,  granted  him  his  life. 

The  governor  had  a  daughter  named  Gurdaferid,  brought 
up  among  warriors,  trained  to  combats,  and  who  always 
accompanied  her  father  to  the  field  of  battle.  From  the 
ramparts  of  the  fortress  she  beheld  Hedgir  fall.  "Without 
an  instant's  hesitation,  she  put  on  her  armor,  concealed  her 
long  tresses  under  her  helmet,  fastened  the  joints  of  her 
coat  of  mail,  threw  herself  upon  her  war-horse,  and  pre 
sented  herself  as  a  warrior  before  Zohrab  the  conqueror. 
She  bent  her  bow,  and  launched  a  shower  of  arrows  against 
him  ;  and  when  he  approached  to  fight  with  her,  she  re 
ceived  him  with  the  point  of  her  lance  firmly  fixed  to  en 
dure  the  shock. 

When  Zohrab  saw  before  him  so  formidable  an  adversary, 
his  anger  rose  ;  he  drew  back  his  arm  until  the  point  of 
his  lance  touched  his  side  ;  he  struck  Gurdaferid  in  the 
waist,  and  tore  her  coat  of  mail.  She,  drawing  her  keen 
sword,  cut  his  lance  in  two,  and  then  turned  her  horse's 
head  to  fly.  Zohrab  pursued,  and  deprived  her  of  her  hel 
met,  when  her  hair,  loosened  from  its  confinement,  fell  down 
over  her  cheeks,  and  her  features,  animated  by  the  contest, 
struck  the  young  warrior  with  admiration. 

"When  Gurdaferid  saw  the  impression  she  had  made  upon 
Zohrab,  she  sought  to  increase  it,  and  spoke  to  him  of  peace 
and  alliance.  "  Her  eyes  were  like  those  of  the  gazelle : 
It  might  be  said  that  heaven  shone  beneath  the  arches  of 
her  eyebrows."  She  saw  that  Zohrab  was  struck  with 
her  beauty,  and  she  began  to  banter  him,  saying,  "  The 
whole  army  will  laugh  when  they  hear  that,  in  fighting 
with  a  woman,  you  have  covered  the  plain  with  dust.  Ex 
pose  not  yourself  to  this  ;  conceal  the  adventure.  Mean- 


ROOSTAM.  311 

time,  the  fortress  is  yours  ;  permit  me  to  enter  it,  and  to 
morrow  you  shall  take  possession." 

Zohrab,  overcome  by  her  beauty,  allowed  his  prey  to  es 
cape,  and  lost  the  opportunity  of  gaining  a  certain  victory. 
Gurdaferid  dragged  herself,  wounded  and  disarmed,  to  the 
castle  ;  but  scarcely  had  the  doors  closed  upon  her  before 
she  rallied  her  conqueror  from  the  ramparts.  Zohrab,  who 
had  really  wished  to  make  her  his  wife,  seeing  that  she 
laughed  at  him,  and  that  she  had  only  spoken  of  peace  and 
alliance  to  cheat  him  of  his  conquest,  replied  that  she 
should  repent  of  these  light  words,  and  returned  in  a  fury 
to  the  camp,  to  commence  preparations  for  attacking  the 
castle  at  daybreak. 

But  during  the  night,  the  beautiful  Gurdaferid  collected 
her  treasures,  jewels,  and  servants,  and  fled  by  a  subter 
raneous  passage.  When  Zohrab  advanced  at  dawn  with 
his  army  to  take  possession  of  the  fortress,  they  found  it 
empty.  Humiliated  at  having  been  thus  tricked,  he  re 
venged  himself  by  laying  waste  the  surrounding  country. 

Kaous,  upon  hearing  of  this  invasion  by  the  troops  of 
Afrasiab,  and  of  the  exploits  of  the  young  hero  who  com 
manded  the  army,  sent  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  royal 
family,  named  Guive  the  Valiant,  to  Roostam,  who  was  his 
father-in-law.  Roostam,  usually  so  eager  for  battle,  and 
prompt  in  vengeance,  remained  for  once  indifferent  to  the 
call  of  Kaous.  Some  inward  feeling  caused  him  to  show 
a  repugnance  against  taking  any  part  in  this  new  war.  He 
entertained  Guive  with  feasts,  and  delayed  for  nine  days 
his  fatal  decision.  At  length  the  sense  of  duty  overcame 
his  repugnance,  and  he  returned  with  Guive.  Kaous,  im 
patient,  imperious,  and  irascible,  received  him  with  anger, 
and  reproached  him  for  his  tardiness.  He  even  threatened 
him  with  death. . 

The  terrified  courtiers  wished  to  remove  Roostam  from 
the  royal  presence,  but  he,  indignant  at  this  outrage,  replied 
angrily  to  the  king,  recalling  all  his  faults  and  follies,  and 
the  services  which  he  had  rendered  him.  "Without  my 


312  ROOSTAM. 

assistance,"  thus  did  he  speak,  "  where  would  Kaous  now 
have  Been  ?  Who  is  he  that  he  should  speak  thus,  or  order 
a  finger  to  be  raised  against  Roostam  ?"  Then,  red  with 
anger,  he  remounted  his  horse  to  return  to  Zaboulistan, 
vowing  never  again  to  present  himself  before  King  Kaous. 

The  chiefs,  in  consternation,  consulted  among  them 
selves,  and  said,  "  The  king  is  no  longer  under  any  restraint. 
Roostam  is  the  hero  of  the  world  ;  it  is  to  him  that  Kaous 
owes  his  life  ;  the  unfortunate  have  no  protector  like  Roos 
tam.  When  the  giants  of  Mazenderan  loaded  the  king  and 
his  nobles  with  heavy  chains,  what  perils  and  dangers  did 
not  Roostam  encounter  in  seeking  their  deliverance  !  He 
conquered  the  chief  of  the  giants,  and,  re-establishing  Kaous 
on  his  throne,  saluted  him  as  his  sovereign ;  and  when  a 
second  time  Kaous  was  imprisoned  in  Hamaveran,  Roos 
tam  fought  with  three  kings  and  three  armies  to  set  him  at 
liberty.  Never  did  he  turn  his  back  upon  the  enemies  of 
the  king.  He  again  restored  Kaous  to  his  kingdom,  and, 
far  from  vaunting  of  his  exploits,  he  bowed  in  the  joy  of 
his  heart  with  submission  before  him.  If  death  is  to  be 
his  reward,  there  is  nothing  left  for  us  but  flight.  Without 
Roostam  we  shall  all  be  lost.  How  then  can  we  pacify 
the  king,  and  induce  Roostam,  who  is  so  justly  offended, 
to  return  ?" 

Gouderz,  a  wise  and  prudent  old  man,  honored  by  all, 
undertook  to  encounter  the  anger  of  Kaous,  and  recall  him 
to  a  proper  feeling.  The  king,  ashamed  of  what  had  passed, 
requested  Gouderz  to  reconcile  him  to.Roostam.  Roostam 
remained  for  some  time  inflexible  ;  but  Gouderz  showed 
him  that  if  he  refused  to  fight,  it  would  look  as  if  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  young  hero  had  terrified  him. 

At  these  words  Roostam  leaped  up  with  rage,  and  con 
sented  to  rejoin  the  army.  When  King^Kaous  perceived 
him  at  some  distance,  he  went  to  meet  him,  and  said,  "  My 
character  and  disposition  are  harsh,  but  when  I  saw  that 
you  were  wounded  I  repented."  Roostam  bowed  proudly 
and  replied,  "  I  come  to  execute  your  orders." 


ROOSTAM.  313 

The  king,  turning  to  his  nobles,  said,  "  Let  us  feast  joy 
fully  to-day,  and  to-morrow  we  will  depart  for  the  war." 
The  army  advanced  close  to  the  fortress  occupied  by 
the  Touranians.  Zohrab  tried  to  discover  Roostam.  He 
mounted  the  ramparts  with  his  prisoner  Hedgir,  and 
promised  him  liberty  if  he  would  point  out  Roostam's 
tent ;  but  Hedgir,  fearing  that  Zohrab  only  sought  Roos 
tam  that  he  might  fight  with  him,  deceived  the  young 
prince,  and  assured  him  that  Roostam  had  not  yet  arrived 
from  Zaboulistan.  Two  Touranian  chiefs  who  had  ac 
companied  Zohrab  confirmed  this  story  :  they  had  been 
appointed  by  Afrasiab  to  prevent  any  interview  before  the 
battle  between  the  two  heroes,  for  he  had  begun  to  sus 
pect  their  relationship,  and,  hoping  they  would  destroy 
each  other,  he  wished  to  prevent  all  chance  of  recog 
nition. 

Roostam  was  astonished  at  the  repugnance  which  he 
felt,  so  contrary  to  his  usual  nature,  in  engaging  in  this 
war,  and  he  refused  on  the  first  day  to  take  the  field  ;  but 
Zohrab,  impatient  to  show  himself  worthy  of  his  race  be 
fore  the  arrival  of  Roostam,  challenged  the  king  to  single 
combat.  Kaous  was  timid,  and  wished  not  to  risk  his 
life.  He  pretended  that  it  was  beneath  his  dignity  to 
fight  with  a  beardless  boy,  and  called  upon  Roostam  to 
assume  his  place.  Thus  divided  between  duty  and  dis 
inclination,  Roostam  recommended  himself  to  God,  and 
repaired  to  the  field  of  battle. 

The  two  champions  measured  each  other  with  their 
eyes;  they  were  of  equal  stature,  and  possessed  the  same 
courage,  but  one  had  the  prudence  of  ripe  age,  and  the 
other°the  impetuosity  of  youth.  Roostam  addressed  his 
adversary  upon  his  inexperience,  and  warned  him  not  to 
encounter  an  opponent  practiced  in  a  thousand  fights. 
Zohrab  simply  said,  "  Are  you  Roostam?" 
plied,  "  I  am  only  his  servant." 

Then  Zohrab  threw  himself  upon  Roostam,  and  a  des 
perate   combat  ensued.     They  fought  with  lance,  bow, 
VOL.  I.— 0 


314  ROOSTAM. 

sword,  and  club.  They  were  matched  in  strength,  and 
neither  had  the  advantage.  Night  forced  them  to  desist, 
but  they  agreed  to  renew  the  strife  at  early  dawn. 

Roostam  entered  his  tent,  and,  calling  his  brother,  said, 
"  This  young  warrior  is  as  strong  as  I  am,  and  more  sup 
ple  and  active^  I  can  riot  tell  what  the  issue  of  this 
struggle  may  be.  You  know  that  I  set  little  value  on  my 
life,  but  I  foresee  that  this  youthful  hero  will  become  the 
conqueror  of  Persia,  and  that  nothing  can  resist  his  prow 
ess.  If  I  fall,  advise  the  king  to  forestall  his  certain  de 
feat  by  a  speedy  peace,  which  alone  can  save  the  crown." 
Having  thus  spoken,  he  sought  an  interval  of  repose,  that 
he  might  be  prepared  for  the  morrow. 

Zohrab,  011  his  side,  re-entered  the  fortress,  and  sending 
for  Human,  the  Touranian,  said  to  him,  "  I  did  not  think 
there  was  a  champion  among  the  Persians  who  could 
fight  thus  save  Roostam  :  I  felt  moved  in  his  presence. 
Tell  me  the  truth,  and  deceive  me  not."  But  Human, 
obeying  the  orders  of  Afrasiab,  maintained  that  this  hero 
was  not  Roostam. 

Zohrab  retired  sadly,  but  eager  for  revenge.  During 
the  night,  when  all  was  quiet  in  the  Persian  camp,  he 
made  an  unexpected  sortie,  and,  after  a  great  slaughter, 
he  re-entered  the  fortress,  and  waited  impatiently  the  ap 
proach  of  day. 

"When  the  two  champions  met  at  dawn,  Zohrab  felt  him 
self  drawn  more  than  ever  toward  Roostam,  and  addressed 
him  with  words  of  amity :  "  Throw  aside  that  club  and 
sword.  Let  us  make  a  treaty  of  peace,  repent  of  our  en 
mity,  and  implore  the  pardon  of  God.  My  heart  will 
communicate  some  of  its  love  to  yours,  and  I  shall  cause 
you  to  shed  tears  of  shame." 

But  Roostam  replied  mournfully,  "  Young  man,  I  have 
girded  myself  for  this  struggle.  We  will  therefore  do  our 
best ;  and  the  result  is  in  the  hands  of  Him  who  ordains 
all  things." 

Zohrab  said,  "  I  see  that  my  advice  touches  not  your 


ROQSTAlVi.  315 

heart.  I  was  desirous  that  your  soul  should  only  quit  the 
body  when  on  your  couch,  and  your  time  had  come  ;  but 
since  you  wish  to  resign  life,  let  us  hasten  to  accomplish 
the  intentions  of  Providence." 

The  combat  recommenced.  Having  tried  all  their  arms 
in  vain,  they  alighted  from  their  horses,  and  fought  hand 
to  hand.  Absence  of  mind  deprived  Roostam  of  part  of 
his  strength  ;  he  was  overthrown  by  Zohrab,  who  drew 
his  sword  to  cut  off  his  head  ;  but  Roostam  cried  out  that, 
by  the  laws  of  single  combat,  a  champion  had  a  right  to 
rise  after  the  first  fall.  Zohrab  suspended  the  blow,  and 
the  struggle  recommenced.  Roostam  felt  his  anger  re 
kindled  at  this  defeat,  and  was  determined  to  redeem  his 
credit.  He  threw  his  adversary  to  the  ground,  and,  fol 
lowing  his  example,  courteously  helped  him  to  arise. 
Thenceforth  it  could  only  be  a  mortal  encounter  between 
them.  They  paused  to  take  breath  for  a  few  moments 
before  commencing  the  final  struggle.  Roostam  invoked 
the  assistance  of  God.  He  set  little  value  on  his  life; 
but  the  thought  of  his  country's  subjugation  to  the  power 
of  Afrasiab,  the  idolater,  made  him  anxious  for  victory. 

They  attacked  each  other,  and  their  misfortunes  com 
menced.  Roostam,  with  renewed  strength,  and  determ 
ined  to  conquer,  assailed  his  youthful  adversary  with 
many  advantages.  Fate  declared  in  his  favor  ;  and,  after 
a  desperate  contest,  Roostam  plunged  his  sword  into  Zoh 
rab 's  breast,  who  fell,  and,  drawing  a  long  sigh,  exclaimed, 
"  Heaven  has  punished  me  for  fighting  against  my  father's 
country.  Alas  !  it  was  to  seek  him  that  I  came  to  Persia ; 
and,  whoever  you  may  be,  indomitable  warrior,  neither 
earth  nor  sea  can  save  you  from  the  vengeance  of  Roos 
tam."  Roostam,  at  these  words,  as  if  struck  by  a  thunder 
bolt,  fell  insensible  at  the  side  of  his  son. 

The  Persian  chiefs,  whose  eyes  had  been  fixed  from  afar 
upon  the  different  changes  of  this  combat,  on  which  de 
pended  peace  or  destruction,  ran  instantly  to  the  spot  when 
they  beheld  the  two  champions  fall.  They  recalled  Roos- 


316  ROOSTAM. 

tarn  to  life  ;  and  Zohrab  made  a  sign  to  him  to  unfasten 
his  coat  of  mail.  Roostam  abandoned  himself  to  the  fury 
of  despair  when  he  recognized  the  bracelet  which  he  had 
given  to  Theminee,  and  accused  himself  with  many  impre 
cations  as  the  murderer  of  his  son.  The  gentle  Zohrab 
recognized  his  father,  and  tried  to  calm  him,  but  deplored 
the  sad  fate  which  had  united  but  to  separate  them  forever. 
They  embraced  in  agony.  Zohrab  besought  Roostam  to 
make  peace,  and  leave  the  Touranians  undisturbed  in  their 
retreat ;  "  for  it  is  I,"  said  he,  "  who  have  led  them  fool 
ishly  to  this  war,  in  the  hope  of -finding  my  father.  I 
asked  those  about  me  to  poiat  him  out,  but  all  deceived 
me.  God  has  willed  it  thus  ;  and  we  shall  meet  again  in 
a  future  and  a  better  existence." 

During  this  discourse,  interrupted  by  sobs,  Guive  the 
Valiant,  the  son-in-law  of  Roostam,  ran  toward  the  king's 
tent.  Kaous  possessed  a  balsam,  composed,  according  to 
popular  belief,  by  the  magicians,  which  had  the  miracu 
lous  power  of  curing  even  mortal  wounds.  Guive  be 
sought  him  instantly  to  give  it  to  him,  that  it  might  save 
the  life  of  Zohrab.  The  king  was  moved,  but  hesitated. 
The  courtiers,  jealous  of  Roostam,  surrounded  the  monarch, 
and  represented  to  him  that  Roostam,  already  so  power 
ful,  would  become  invincible  when  seconded  by  a  son  like 
Zohrab,  and  that  they  would  even  cause  him  to  tremble 
on  his  throne.  Kaous  refused  to  give  the  balsam.  Roos 
tam  rushed  franticly  forward,  and  was  about  to  force  it 
from  the  king,  but  in  that  short  interval  Zohrab  expired.* 

We  shall  not  endeavor  to  depict  the  grief  of  Roostam. 
He  tore  his  clothes,  covered  his  head  with  dust,  and,  dis 
gusted  with  life,  called  impetuously  upon  death.  He 
wished  to  punish  himself  for  his  involuntary  murder,  and 
hide  his  shame  from  every  eye.  He  carried  the  body  of 
his  son  to  Zaboulistan,  caused  him  to  be  interred  with  the 

*  Throughout  Persia,  and  even  in  India  and  China,  this  event  has 
become  a  proverb,  and  they  say,  in  alluding  to  any  tardy  succor,  "  It 
is  the  balm  after  the  death  of  Zohrab." 


ROOSTAM.  317 

most  magnificent  funeral  obsequies,  and  erected  a  monu 
ment  to  his  memory.  The  whole  country  participated  in 
the  grief  of  Zal-zer  and  Roostam,  who  renounced  war  and 
lived  for  several  years  in  retirement.  Roostam  sent  mes- 
sencrers  to  fetch  Theminee,  that  they  might  weep  togeth 
er  •'but  the  unfortunate  mother,  struck  to  the  heart  by  the 
death  of  her  son,  and  blaming  herself  for  not  having  com 
municated  to  Roostam  the  existence  of  Zohrab,  and  for  not 
having  followed  him  to  make  him  acquainted  with  his  la 
ther,  languished  and  died  within  a  year. 

The  sage  says,  -  Grieve  not  for  the  dead.  You  will 
not  remain  long  here  ;  be  then  prepared.  Your  Father 
has  appointed  the  day  for  your  departure  ;  know  you  not 
that  it  has  not  arrived  ?  This  is  His  secret,  which  is  un 
known  to  others.  Become  not  attached  to  this  passing 
scene  for  that  which  is  so  fleeting  can  profit  thee  but  little. 

Durinrr  these  years  of  retirement,  the  unfortunate  Roos 
tam  devoted  himself  to  the  education  of  the  king's  son, 
which  important  care  had  been  specially  intrusted  to  him. 
Firdousi  commences  his  recital  in  the  following  words : 
«  This  is  an  old  history,  but  I  am  going  to  renew  the  rec 
ollection  of  those  ancient  times,  and  that  which  the  poet 
revives  is  no  longer  old." 

The  birth  of  a  son  had  been  announced  to  Kaous. 
priests  and  magicians  cast  the  child's  horoscope  ;  they  de 
clared  that  there  was  nothing  fortunate  in  the  conjunction 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  at  the  period  of  his  birth,  and  that 
his  good  qualities  as  well  as  his  faults  would  equally  lead 
to  misfortunes.     Uneasy  at  these  prognostications,  Kaous 
confided  the  education  of  his  son  to  Roostam,  who  took 
him  with  him  to  Zaboulistan.     Roostam  sought  to  divert 
his  grief  for  the  death  of  Zohrab  by  attaching  himself  to 
this  child,  whom  he  succeeded  in  rendering  a  most  accom 
plished  prince.     "  He  made  him  acquainted,"  says  Fir 
dousi,  "  with  the  right  and  wrong ;  instructed  him  in  the 
duties  of  government,  in  the  prerogatives  of  the  crown,  in 
eloquence,  and  in  war.     He  taught  him  every  virtue,  and, 


318  ROOSTAM. 

having  taken  much  trouble,  this  trouble  brought  forth  good 
fruit." 

After  fifteen  years  spent  in  retirement,  Roostam  took 
Sciawousche  back  to  his  father's  court.  This  young  prince , 
heir  to  the  throne,  constituted  the  hope  of  the  nation.  The 
admiration  which  the  people  felt  for  Roostam  reflected 
back  upon  his  pupil.  His  journey  was  a  triumph  ;  Roos 
tam  had  adorned  him  with  the  most  brilliant  and  costly 
equipments  that  he  possessed,  and  accompanied  him,  with 
all  the  chiefs  of  Zaboulistan,  along  the  road.  The  people 
prepared  feasts  ;  they  mixed  gold  with  amber,  and  show 
ered  it  from  the  tops  of  the  houses  upon  the  heads  of  the 
nobles.  The  earth  was  filled  with  joy,  and  adorned  with 
all  that  was  most  precious.  The  doors  and  walls  of  the 
palaces  were  hung  with  brocade,  and  they  threw  pieces 
of  silver  under  the  feet  of  the  Arab  horses,  whose  manes 
were  perfumed  with  musk,  wine,  and  saffron.  Sorrow 
appeared  to  be  banished  from  the  world. 

Kaous  sent  a  joyful  escort,  composed  of  the  young  war 
riors,  members  of  the  royal  family,  to  meet  his  son.  On 
arriving  at  the  palace,  servants  carrying  censers  full  of 
perfumes  went  before  him.  Three  hundred  attendants, 
stationed  at  the  four  corners  of  the  court,  received  the  no 
ble  Sciawousche,  who  scattered  money  and  jewels  around 
him,  and  all  repeated  his  praises  in  songs.  When  he  ap 
proached  his  father,  the  young  prince  prostrated  himself 
upon  his  face  to  the  earth ;  the  king  raised  him,  and  press 
ed  him  to  his  breast.  He  received  Roostam  most  gra 
ciously,  and  caused  him  to  be  seated  on  a  throne  inlaid 
with  turquoises.  The  king  was  filled  with  admiration  at 
the  appearance  of  his  son,  his  tall  figure,  and  noble  mien, 
and  invoked  the  blessings  of  heaven  upon  his  head.  This 
youth  was  so  intelligent  that  it  might  have  been  said  that 
Wisdom  herself  had  been  the  foster-mother  of  his  genius. 
The  king  ordered  a  festival  such  as  no  monarch  had  ever 
ordered  before,  and  the  rejoicings  lasted  for  seven  days. 

Sciawousche  remained  seven  years  with  his  father,  who 


ROOSTAM.  319 

proved  him  in  many  ways,  and  found  his  conduct  irre 
proachable.  In  the  eighth  year  the  king  caused  a  decree 
to  be  written  on  silk,  investing  his  son  with  the  govern 
ment  of  the  country  of  Transoxiana.  These  seven  years 
had  perfected  the  beauty  of  Sciawousche.  From  a  strip 
ling  he  had  grown  into  a  man,  still  retaining  the  graces 
of  adolescence,  but  of  lofty  stature  and  majestic  deport 
ment. 

One  day  the  dueen  Zoudabe'e  saw  him  in  company  with 
his  father.  Bewildered  by  his  beauty,  she  became  pen 
sive,  and  her  heart  was  moved.  From  that  moment  she 
thought  of  nothing  but  of  how  she  might  behold  him  near 
er.  She  persuaded  the  king  that  it  was  proper  he  should 
permit  his  son  to  enter  the  harem  and  see  his  sisters,  in 
order  to  become  acquainted  with  them.  Kaous  sent  for 
his  son,  and  proposed  this  to  him.  Sciawousche  was 
troubled  at  the  words  of  the  king.  He  reflected,  and 
thinking  that  Kaous  had  spoken  only  to  try  him,  replied, 
"  The  king  has  given  me  a  command,  a  throne,  and  a 
crown.  I  should,  therefore,  be.  surrounded  by  priests, 
sages,  nobles,  and  those  who  are  experienced  in  affairs  of 
state  ;  what  can  I  learn  in  the  apartments  of  the  women? 
Can  women  point  out  to  me  the  path  of  wisdom  ?  Nev 
ertheless,  if  it  is  the  will  of  the  king,  it  becomes  my  duty 
to  obey  him." 

Kaous  was  delighted  with  the  reply  of  his  son,  and  the 
wisdom  that  it  demonstrated ;  but  told  him  to  go  without 
fear,  and  visit  his  sisters  in  the  harem.  Now  there  was 
an  artful  and  deceitful  man,  named  Hirbed,  who  was  in  the 
confidence  of  Zoudabe'e.  To  him  was  confided  the  charge 
of  introducing  the  young  prince  into  the  harem. 

Sciawousche,  reassured  by  the  words  of  the  king,  ad 
vanced  without  distrust  ;  but  when  Hirbed  withdrew  the 
curtain  from  the  door,  he  trembled  as  he  thought  of  the 
misfortunes  that  might  befall  him,  for  he  had  an  instinct 
ive  dread  of  Zoudabee,  as  she  was  descended  from  the  race 
of  Arirnan. 


320  ROOSTAM. 

"  The  apartment  was  decorated  as  if  for  a  festival.  It 
was  perfumed  with  musk  and  arnber  ;  the  floor  was  cov 
ered  with  Chinese  brocade,  strewed  with  pearls  of  exqui 
site  water ;  beautiful  slaves  threw  pieces  of  silver  under 
his  feet,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  music  and  song."  At 
the  end  of  the  hall  stood  a  raised  throne,  ornamented  with 
gold  and  turquoise,  upon  which  Zoudabee  was  seated,  "ra 
diant  with  colors  and  perfumes."  Her  ringlets  fell  over 
each  other,  under  the  royal  crown,  and  her  hair  reached 
her  feet.  On  each  side  of  the  throne  were  placed  rows 
of  slaves,  who  held  their  golden  shoes  in  their  hands,  and 
inclined  their  heads  in  token  of  respect.  Zoudabee,  as 
soon  as  she  saw  the  curtain  raised,  rushed  forward  to 
meet  the  young  prince,  pressed  him  long  to  her  bosom, 
and  kissed  his  face  and  eyes  :  she  could  not  cease  to  gaze 
on  him  for  a  moment.  Sciawousche  felt  that  this  tender 
ness  was  not  according  to  the  ordinance  of  heaven,  and 
hastened  to  his  sisters,  with  whom  he  remained  a  long 
time. 

But  Zoudabee,  who  longed  for  another  opportunity  of 
seeing  him,  said  to  the  king,  "  If  you  will  follow  my  ad 
vice,  you  will  at  once  marry  Sciawousche  to  one  of  the 
daughters  of  your  house,  that  he  also  may  have  a  son  like 
himself,  to  be  the  joy  of  your  old  age.  I  will  assemble  in 
my  apartments  all  the  royal  race,  and  he  shall  come  and 
choose  his  wife  from  among  them."  Kaous,  who  always 
approved  ofZoudabee's  advice,  consented  to  this;  he  call 
ed  his  son,  and  acquainted  him  with  his  wishes. 

The  young  prince  replied,  "  Choose  yourself,  my  father; 
I  will  accept  whatever  wife  you  give  me,  but  I  do  not 
wish' again  to  enter  the  apartments  of  the  women." 

The  king  smiled  at  this  answer,  without  perceiving  the 
hidden  danger:  "Go,  my  son,"  said  he,  "you  must  select 
your  own  wife,  and  Zoudabee  will  watch  over  your  heart." 
Sciawousche  obeyed,  and  Hirbed  again  conducted  him  to 
Zoudabee,  who  descended  joyfully  from  her  throne,  her 
hair  covered  with  jewels.  She  placed  Sciawousche  upon 


ROOSTAM.  321 

it,  and  seated  herself  below  him,  with  her  arms  crossed 
upon  her  breast.  She  then  caused  twelve  young  girls, 
full  of  grace  and  modesty,  to  pass  before  him.  The 
prince  scarcely  looked  at  them,  while  they  dared  not 
raise  their  eyes  to  gaze  on  him.  After  this  ceremony, 
Zoudabee  dismissed  them  all  and  remained  alone  with 
Sciawousche.  She  questioned  him  upon  the  impression 
which  these  fair  damsels  had  made  upon  him.  In  nam 
ing  each,  she  added  an  epithet  or  remark  sufficient  to  de 
ter  Sciawousche  from  choosing  her ;  but  as  he  hesitated 
to  reply,  being  on  his  guard,  she  threw  back  her  veil,  and 
standing  up,  spoke  thus :  "  I  wonder  not  that  thou  de- 
spisest  the  moon  when  the  sun  is  before  thee.  He  who 
has  once  beheld  me  can  see  no  beauty  in  others  ;  but  if 
thou  desirest  to  form  an  alliance  with  me,  I  will  give  unto 
thee  one  of  my  daughters  in  marriage.  She  shall  be  unto 
thee  as  a  slave  until  the  age  when  thou  canst  espouse  her, 
and  until  then  thou  shalt  remain  faithful  to  me  ;  I  shall  be 
happy,  for  thou  wilt  cherish  me  as  thine  own  soul,  and  all 
that  thou  requirest  of  me  I  will  grant."  She  then  em 
braced  him  and  kissed  his  cheeks,  for  she  had  laid  aside 
all  modesty.  The  face  of  Sciawousche  reddened  like  the 
rose,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears  of  shame.  He  reflect 
ed  thus  :  "  If  I  reply  harshly  to  this  woman,  she  will  com 
plain  of  me  to  my  father.  It  is  much  better  to  dissimu 
late,  and  use  gentle  words."  He  therefore  said  to  her  that 
he  accepted  the  proposal  of  marrying  her  daughter,  and 
making  some  allusion  to  her  tender  expressions,  he  ad 
vised  her  to  keep  this  a  secret  as  he  should,  for  he  looked 
upon  her  as  his  mother.  He  left  her  thus  in  uncertainty ; 
but  she,  overpowered  by  love,  said  to  herself,  "  If  Scia 
wousche  will  not  do  as  I  wish,  I  consent  that  he  should 
break  my  heart,  for  I  will  use  every  means,  openly  and  in 
secret,  to  gain  his  affections ;  and  if  he  should  despise  my 
love,  I  will  complain  of  him  to  the  king." 

Zoudabe'e,  encouraged  by  Kaous,  who  placed  immense 
treasures  at  her  disposal  as  the  marriage  portion  of  her 
02 


322  ROOSTAM. 

daughter,  sent  to  seek'  Sciawousche  that  she  might  give 
them  to  him.  On  this  occasion,  having  nothing  to  con 
ceal,  she  spoke  openly  of  her  love,  and  said,  "If  you 
scorn  me,  I  will  deprive  you  of  this  empire,  and  the  light 
of  the  moon  and  the  sun  shall  be  hid  from  you  through 
my  influence."  Sciawousche,  roused  to  anger,  would  no 
longer  condescend  to  subterfuge,  but  replied,  "How  could 
I  thus  betray  my  father,  and  forsake  virtue  ?  wherefore 
have  you  the  shamelessness  to  propose  this  crime  to  me  ?" 
Having  thus  spoken,  he  retired,  filled  with  rage  and  in 
dignation. 

Then  Zoudabee  uttered  loud  cries,  and  called  for  help, 
tearing  her  clothes  and  cheeks  with  her  nails,  so  that  the 
noise  could  be  heard  in  the  streets. 

Kaous  left  his  throne  and  rushed  to  the  harem.  Zou 
dabee  accused  his  son  of  having  offered  an  insult  to  her 
virtue.  The  king,  alarmed,  sent  for  Sciawousche,  saying, 
"It  is  I  who  have  exposed  him  to  this  temptation,  but,  if 
guilty,  his  head  must  fall." 

Sciawousche  essayed  to  justify  himself.  Zoudabee  con 
tinued  to  accuse  him  :  her  love  was  now  turned  to  hatred. 
The  affair  was  submitted  to  the  decision  of  the  judges, 
who  declared  in  favor  of  the  young  prince. 

Zoudabee  became  furious  and  invented  a  hellish  plot. 
She  pretended  to  be  prematurely  confined  of  an  infant, 
whose  death  had  been  occasioned  by  the  violence  of  Scia 
wousche.  The  priests  then  declared  that  this  child  was 
not  of  the  royal  race  ;  and  as  nothing  could  calm  the 
king's  mind,  it  was  decided  that  the  accused  should  sub 
mit  to  the  trial  by  fire.  Zoudabee  refused,  but  Sciawous 
che  submitted,  saying,  "  If  it  were  a  mountain  of  fire,  I 
would  trample  it  under  foot :  better  to  perish  than  to  suf 
fer  the  shame  which  I  endure." 

The  king  sent  for  one  hundred  caravans  of  strong,  red- 
haired  dromedaries,  who  brought  a  thousand  loads  of 
wood,  which  were  piled  up  to  the  sky  in  the  form  of  two 
mountains,  between  which  there  was  left  a  narrow  pas- 


ROOSTAM.  323 

sage  scarcely  wide  enough  to  admit  a  man.  They  then 
saturated  the  wood  with  naphtha,  that  it  might  burn  the 
more  quickly.  These  mountains  of  wood  were  visible  at 
two  miles'  distance,  such  was  their  enormous  size  ;  and 
when  the  fire  was  kindled,  the  people  suffered  from  the 
heat,  and  mourned  over  Sciawousche,  who  advanced  in 
white  raiment,  as  if  enveloped  in  a  winding-sheet,  and* 
seated  upon  a  black  horse.  He  appeared  perfectly  calm, 
and  a  smile  was  on  his  lips.  He  drew  near  to  his  father, 
and  said,  "Fear  nothing ;  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  this 
should  happen.  My  head  is  now  covered  with  ignominy. 
I  shall  be  freed  from  it,  if  innocent ;  if  guilty,  God  will 
abandon  me.  But,  thanks  to  the  strength  which  he  has 
given  me,  my  heart  quails  not  before  that  mountain  of 
fire."  Then  approaching  the  pile,  and  raising  his  hands 
to  heaven,  he  said,  "  0  thou  God  who  art  above  all,  per 
mit  me  to  pass  through  this  fire,  and  deliver  me  from  the 
shame  that  overwhelms  me."  Thus  saying,  he  caused 
his  black  horse  to  rush  into  the  flames  with  rapidity  equal 
to  their  own.  "Then  arose  a  cry  from  plain  and  city, 
and  grief  took  possession  of  the  people.  The  men  looked 
at  Kaous  with  eyes  overflowing  with  indignation  and 
mouths  quivering  with  curses.  Sciawousche  forced  his 
black  charger  through  the  flames,  who  appeared  as  if  ca 
parisoned  with  fire.  The  whole  plain  was  covered  with 
bloodshot  and  anxious  eyes,  for  the  helmet  of  Sciawous 
che  ceased  to  be  visible.  But  this  noble  youth  emerged 
from  the  burning  trial  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips,  and  his 
cheeks  like  the  leaves  of  a  rose.  The  horse,  the  rider, 
and  his  white  robe  were  unscathed,  and  appeared  fresh  as 
a  lily.  One  universal  cry  arose  :  '  The  young  prince  has 
passed  through  the  fire  ;  joy  has  filled  the  earth.'" 

The  Persians  surrounded  their  king,  and  vociferously 
demanded  the  death  of  Zoudabee.  The  king-  consented, 
although  it  cost  him  many  pangs  ;  but  at  that  instant  his 
anger  was  aroused  against  her.  The  generous  Scia 
wousche,  foreseeing  that  his  father  would  one  day  regret 


324  ROOSTAM. 

this  sacrifice,  interceded,  and  Kaous  only  wished  for  an 
excuse  to  pardon  her.  Zoudabee  was  re-established  in 
the  palace,  and  the  old  king  became  more  blindly  attach 
ed  to  her  than  ever.  A  sage  has  said,  "  There  is  no  love 
so  great  as  that  which  we  feel  for  our  own  blood.  When, 
therefore,  thou  hast  obtained  a  son  worthy  of  thee,  alien- 
"ate  thy  heart  from  the  love  of  woman."  Sciawousche 
soon  perceived  that  Zoudabee  had  artfully  poisoned  his 
father's  heart  against  him,  and  resolved  therefore  to  quit 
the  court.  He  entreated  his  father  to  give  him  a  com 
mand,  and  marched  against  Afrasiab,  accompanied  by 
Roostam  and  12,000  young  warriors  of  his  own  age,  at 
the  head  of  a  formidable  army.  "  It  might  have  been 
said  that  there  was  only  room  upon  the  earth  for  their 
horses'  shoes." 

Sciawousche  and  Roostam  gained  a  great  victory  over 
Afrasiab,  who  sued  for  peace,  retired  with  his  army,  and 
left  a  hundred  hostages  of  the  most  illustrious  families  of 
Touran.  Sciawousche  pledged  his  word  and  signed  the 
treaty.  Roostam  returned  to  the  king  to  acquaint  him 
with  the  issue  of  this  glorious  campaign.  Kaous,  whose 
head  was  filled  with  vengeance  and  foolish  passions,  dis 
approved  of  the  conduct  of  his  son,  blamed  Roostam  for 
the  advice  which  he  had  given  him,  and  ordered  him  in 
an  angry  letter  to  break  the  treaty,  and  send  the  hostages 
to  him,  or  resign  the  command. 

Deprived  of  the  counsels  of  Roostam,  the  heart  of  Scia 
wousche  became  troubled.  "  How,"  exclaimed  he,  "  can 
I  break  my  word  ?  How  disobey  the  king,  and  how  can 
I  implore  the  protection  of  God  if  I  deliver  up  these  inno 
cent  hostages  to  the  vengeance  of  my  father  ?  And  if,  in 
violation  of  my  pledged  promise,  I  make  war  unjustly, 
God,  the  Master  of  the  world,  will  punish  me.  If  I  give 
up  the  command  and  return  to  the  court,  Zoudabe'e  will  be 
the  source  of  great  affliction.  I  see  nothing  but  misfor 
tune  on  every  side.  Destiny,  which  smiled  on  me,  has 
been  clouded  by  this  evil  woman.  The  heart  of  Kaous 


ROOSTAM.  325 

was  like  a  tree  full  of  leaves  and  fruit ;  but  since  Zouda- 
be'e  has  perverted  it,  the  fruit  has  become  poison,  and 
the  leaves  shed  death  around. 

"  Oh  !  why  did  my  mother  ever  bear  me  ?  and  why  has 
not  death  taken  me  from  the  world  and  its  sorrows  ?  I 
will  go  to  some  remote  corner  of  the  earth,  where  my 
name  will  be  concealed  from  Kaous  ;  then  my  life  will  be 
in  the  hands  of  God  ;  for  the  commands  of  the  king  are 
above  the  sun  and  moon,  but  nothing  can  compete  with 
the  power  of  the  Eternal.  Whoever  infringes  his  decrees 
must  be  devoid  of  reason.  I  will  not  violate  this  treaty 
to  which  I  have  sworn,  even  if  it  should  cause  the  loss  of 
my  power  and  kingdom.  God  is  my  asylum  ;  earth  is  my 
throne,  and  heaven  my  crown." 

As  soon  as  the  sun  had  set  and  the  sky  was  darkened, 
Sciawousche  chose  100  warriors  and  departed,  his  cheeks 
Wet  with  the  tears  that  flowed  from  his  eyes. 

Fresh  wars  forced  Roostam  to  resume  his  arms.  He 
killed  Afrasiab's  son  ;  Afrasiab  himself  fled  before  him 
into  China.  "  He  had  sought  fortune,  and  had  found  ca 
lamity  ;  he  had  asked  the  world  for  honey,  and  it  had 
given  him  poison." 

Roostam,  every  where  victorious,  remained  master  of 
Touran,  which  he  governed  for  seven  years  with  justice 
and  wisdom  ;  but  Heaven  changed  his  thoughts,  and  he 
felt  desirous  of  visiting  his  own  country.  "  Those  who 
have  endured  much  trouble  in  this  life  for  the  acquisition 
of  power,"  says  the  poet,  "  will  in  the  end  have  no  other 
couch  than  the  dust.  This  world  bestows  a  poison  for 
which  there  is  no  antidote.  Be  not  eager  to  possess  your 
self  of  a  crown,  for  you  will  carry  it  with  you  to  the  grave  ; 
it  will  be  buried  in  your  tomb.  You  work,  but  another 
will  reap  the  fruits  of  your  labor,  without  casting  a  glance 
toward  your  bier.  Think  that  your  days  are  nearly  sped, 
and  employ  yourself  in  praying  to  the  just  God.  Howev 
er  long  your  sojourn  here  on  earth  may  be,  you  must  leave 
it  by  a  road  which  admits  of  no  return.  Do  good,  then, 
and  injure  no  one  :  such  is  the  will  of  Heaven." 


326  ROOSTAM. 

Roostam  resigned  the  Touranian  crown,  and,  tired  of 
his  long  absence  from  his  country,  returned  to  Zaboulistan. 
As  soon  as  Afrasiab  heard  of  his  departure,  he  left  his  re 
treat,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  commanded 
by  the  Khan  of  China,  retook  his  own  dominions,  and  in 
vaded  Persia,  knowing  that  the  feeble  Kaous  was  unable 
to  defend  himself.  Roostam,  disgusted  with  the  ill  treat 
ment  he  continued  to  receive  from  the  king,  would  not 
again  trouble  himself  to  revenge  him. 

But  Sciawousche,  who  had  been  assassinated  by  Afra 
siab,  had  left  a  son  called  Chosrow,  the  source  of  the  line 
of  Chosroes.  His  mother,  having  secured  him  from  the 
cruelty  of  Afrasiab,  caused  him  to  be  brought  up  by  the 
priests  in  the  mountains.  His  life,  as  well  as  that  of  Sci 
awousche,  during  his  exile,  was  full  of  interesting  adven 
tures,  but  this  history  is  already  too  long  to  relate  them. 
Suffice  it  that  Roostam,  accompanied  by  his  second  son, 
Firamorz,  re-established  Chosrow,  by  superhuman  acts  of 
valor,  upon  the  throne  of  Persia,  which  Kaous  his  grand 
father,  old  and  weak,  joyfully  resigned  in  his  favor. 

The  military  exploits  of  Roostam  are  so  closely  connect 
ed  with  the  history  of  the  Persian  schahs,  that  to  relate 
them  it  would  be  necessary  to  enter  in  detail  into  the 
causes  of  the  wars  with  Touran,  China,  and  India,  which 
would  extend  far  beyond  the  space  to  which  I  have  limit 
ed  myself.  I  select  in  preference  the  events  which  were 
the  result  of  individual  or  natural  causes,  of  love,  generos 
ity,  devoted  patriotism,  or  personal  revenge,  and  which  de 
pict  much  better  the  entire  and  strongly-drawn  characters 
of  that  period. 

There  arose  about  this  time  a  young,  brave,  and  chival- 
ric  champion  named  Bijen,  the  grandson  of  Roostam. 
Led  away  by  a  prolonged  chase,  which  extended  beyond 
the  frontiers  of  Persia,  he  found  himself  one  day  separated 
from  his  companions,  and  alone  with  a  young  warrior  old 
er  than  himself,  but  crafty  and  envious  of  his  courage. 
He  treacherously  sought  to  ruin  Bijen,  not  daring  to  en- 


ROOSTAM.  327 

counter  him  in  equal  combat.  As  they  were  in  a  hostile 
country,  he  thought  it  a  favorable  moment  to  engage  Bijen 
in  some  rash  adventure  which  might  cause  him  to  fall  into 
the  power  of  the  enemy.  The  occasion  too  soon  present 
ed  itself.  After  traversing  a  thick  forest,  where  they  had 
fought  with  savage  deer  and  wild  boars  that  ravaged  the 
country,  they  suddenly  arrived  in  a  beautiful  valley,  wa 
tered  by  a  murmuring  stream,  full  of  birds  of  the  most 
brilliant  plumage,  and  covered  with  fruit-trees,  oranges, 
pomegranates,  figs,  and  peaches.  In  the  centre  was  spread 
a  tent  of  gold  brocade,  from  whence  issued  a  multitude  of 
young  girls,  who  sported  among  the  rose-bushes  in  full 
bloom. 

It  was  the  tent  of  Afrasiab's  daughter,  a  young  widow 
who  had  come  to  pass  some  days  in  this  terrestrial  para 
dise,  to  supply  herself  with  essence  of  roses.  The  two 
young  warriors  stood  still  in  admiration  at  this  unexpect 
ed  scene.  Bijen,  knowing  the  respect  due  to  the  abode 
of  Eastern  females,  was  about  to  retire  before  they  per 
ceived  him,  but  his  companion  rallied  him  upon  not  daring 
to  profit  by  his  good  fortune.  Stung  to  the  quick,  he  for 
got  all  prudence,  and  presented  himself,  armed  and  on 
horseback,  before  the  tent  of  the  Princess  Menigee.  His 
companion  was  careful  not  to  follow,  but  Bijen  had  already 
ceased  to  think  of  him.  He  advanced  rashly  until  the 
sentinel  barred  his  passage.  The  princess,  astonished  at 
his  boldness,  and  wishing  to  know  his  name  and  quality, 
dispatched  her  nurse  to  question  him. 

When  she  was  informed  that  he  sprang  from  a  royal 
race,  curiosity  triumphed  over  every  other  sentiment.  She 
desired  to  see  him.  His  manly  beauty,  youth,  and  temer 
ity  interested  her ;  and,  after  passing  several  days  in  her 
tent,  they  were  married.  When  the  time  arrived  that  they 
were  obliged  to  separate,  Menigee,  who  had  exhausted  in 
vain  every  means  of  persuasion  to  retain  Bijen  near  her, 
resolved  to  give  him  a  sleeping  potion  ;  and  then  attiring 
him  in  female  vestments,  she  transported  him  in  her  litter 


328  ROOSTAM. 

to  her  own  abode,  where  they  passed  a  considerable  inter 
val  in  the  delights  of  love  and  mystery.  But  Bijen's  rea 
son  soon  returned.  He  felt  that  his  folly  might  cost  him 
dear,  and  was  anxious  to  depart.  It  was  too  late  ;  the 
servants,  whose  silence  the  princess  had  bought,  wishing 
to  get  still  more  money  from  the  king,  declared  the  pres 
ence  of  Bijen  in  the  palace. 

The  fury  of  Afrasiab  surpassed  all  that  the  guilty  pair 
could  have  anticipated.  Bijen,  bound,  and  with  an  iron 
collar  round  his  neck,  was  thrown  into  a  well  hollowed  in 
a  rock ;  a  large  stone  of  immense  weight  was  placed  over 
the  opening,  leaving  only  a  sufficient  space  for  a  hand  to 
pass  through,  to  convey  some  small  and  unfrequent  nour 
ishment  to  the  prisoner.  This  hand  was  that  of  the  Prin 
cess  Menigee,  who,  deprived  of  all  the  insignia  of  her  rank, 
and  clothed  as  a  mendicant,  was  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  begging  her  own  and  her  husband's  food.  It  had  been 
forbidden  to  give  him  any  thing  except  a  barley  cake,  that 
he  might  linger  on  a  miserable  existence  in  protracted 
hunger.  Throughout  the  day  she  remained  crouched  at 
the  mouth  of  the  well,  lamenting  over  her  own  and  her 
beloved  Bijen's  fate,  and  trying  to  discern  him  in  the  dark 
ness,  to  touch  his  hand,  and  to  console  him  by  her  tears. 
But  Guive  the  Valiant,  the  father  of  Bijen,  not  seeing  him 
return  with  his  companions  from  the  chase  which  occupied 
these  young  warriors  for  several  months  in  each  year,  and 
accustomed  them  to  combats,  became  uneasy,  and  interro 
gated  those  who  had  followed  Bijen.  Nobody  could  give 
him  any  intelligence  of  his  son. 

He  assembled  all  the  magicians,  diviners,  and  astrolo 
gers.  He  made  them  cast  horoscopes  ;  they  told  him  of 
misfortunes  that  had  happened,  but  they  were  unable  to 
specify  particulars.  At  last  a  Dive  presented  himself  with 
a  magic  mirror,  which,  under  certain  conditions,  possessed 
the  faculty  of  presenting  the  likeness  of  the  desired  person  ; 
and  Guive,  after  the  ceremonies  of  initiation,  saw  Bijen  at 
the  bottom  of  his  stone  prison.  But  there  the  power  of 


ROOSTAM.  329 


the  magician  ended ;  he  could  not  inform  him  in  what 
country  his  son  was  enduring  this  martyrdom.* 

Roostam  and  Guive  departed  to  seek  him.  In  the  first 
instance  they  followed  the  track  of  the  hunters  until  they 
arrived  at  the  limits  of  Persia.  They  then  disguised  them 
selves  as  merchants,  and  formed  a  caravan,  going  from  city 
to  city,  buying  and  selling,  and  stopping  at  all  the  khans 
and  bazars  to  learn  the  news,  justly  thinking  that  an  event 
like  this  cruel  imprisonment  would  be  the  subject  of  con 
versation  in  all  public  places.  After  many  changes  of  for 
tune  they  arrived  at  the  Touranian  capital,  where  every 
day  the  unhappy  Menigee  petitioned  for  alms.  Roostam 
learned  her  melancholy  history  from  the  merchants  in  the 
bazar,  and,  pretending  to  give  her  a  small  piece  of  money, 
he  slipped  into  her  hand  a  ring  which  would  certainly  be 
recognized  by  Bijen,  and  then  passed  on  his  way  to  avoid 
exciting  any  suspicions. 

Night  came  ;  Roostam  and  Guive  traversed  in  silence 
the  streets,  which  at  that  hour  were  deserted,  and  arrived 
at  the  well;  but  here  their  difficulties  increased.     How 
could  they  avoid  a  noise  which  might  attract  the  attention 
of  the  sentinels  ?    How  raise  the  mass  of  rock  which  closed 
this  living  sepulchre  ?     Their  attempts  were  ineffectual ; 
and  feeling  that,  without  a  lever,  they  could  not  move  this 
mass  of  stone,  their  courage  began  to  droop.     Should  they 
be  observed,  they  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy, 
and  death,  preceded  by  the  most  frightful  tortures,  await 
ed  them.     Roostam  drew  back,  calling  with  all  the  energy 
of  his  soul  upon  God  to  aid  them.     He  then  made  a  last 
effort,  and  the  rock  yielded  to  the  supernatural  strength 
which  God  had  granted  to  him.     Bijen  was  freed,  and  con- 
*  The  agency  of  the  marvelous  in  historical  events,  which  we  find 
so  constantly  recorded  in  the  accounts  of  what  happened  during  the 
early  ages,  need  not  surprise  us  ;  for  finding,  as  we  have  recently  done, 
an  analogy  with  the  sacred  traditions  of  the  Bible,  may  we  not  com 
pare  this  last  adventure  with  the  necromancy  of  modern  times  1     Does 
not  the  magic  mirror  resemble  the  magnetic  pail  of  Mesmer,  which  has 
found  adepts  in  these  advanced  days  of  civilization  1 


330  ROOSTAM. 

ducted  with  his  princess  to  the  khan,  where  their  deliver 
ers  had  left  their  merchandise.  There  was  not  an  instant 
to  be  lost.  Dawn  would  betray  the  prisoner's  flight ;  but 
God  protected  them,  and  they  regained  the  frontier.  There 
they  took  a  moment's  repose,  and  returned  thanks  to  the 
Almighty.  But  the  alarm  was  given.  Afrasiab  assem 
bled  his  troops  in  haste.  A  sanguinary  war  between  the 
two  countries  was  the  result  of  this  adventure.  Roostam, 
Guive,  and  Bijen  attacked  the  palace  of  Afrasiab,  who  fled 
by  a  secret  passage,  and  came  back  once  more  at  the  head 
of  a  powerful  army.  Roostam  again  triumphed,  compel 
led  Afrasiab  to  return  to  his  allegiance,  and  then  he  him 
self  re-entered  Zaboulistan. 

Afrasiab,  having  failed  in  achieving  his  revenge  by  force, 
determined  to  effect  it  by  stratagem.  An  odious  and  well- 
conceived  plot  involved  even  Roostam  himself.  He  was 
not  to  be  conquered  by  force  ;  treachery  alone  could  tri 
umph  over  him.  As  loyal  as  invincible,  he  was  quite  un 
suspicious  of  evil  designs  in  those  who  professed  friend 
ship  for  him,  and  he  fell  a  victim  to  his  too  generous  con 
fidence. 

His  father,  Zal-zer,  had  by  a  slave  an  elder  son  named 
Schughad.  After  some  time,  the  evil  disposition  of  this 
Schughad,  and  the  hatred  he  bore  to  Roostam,  obliged  Zal- 
zer  to  send  him  away.  He  recommended  him  to  the  trib 
utary  King  of  Cabul,  who  brought  him  up  as  his  adopted 
child,  and  gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage.  But,  how 
ever  happy  was  the  fortune  of  Schughad  at  the  court  of 
Cabul,  he  ceased  not  to  nourish  revenge  in  his  heart  at  the 
preference  shown  by  his  father  to  Roostam.  The  King 
of  Cabul,  wishing  to  free  himself  from  the  annual  tribute 
due  to  Zal-zer,  joined  in  the  dark  projects  of  Schughad. 

Having  well  matured  their  plans,  Schughad  pretended 
to  fly  from  Cabul  as  the  victim  of  cruel  treatment  on  the 
part  of  the  king.  He  presented  himself  before  Zal-zer, 
imploring  his  protection,  and  appealed  to  his  rights  as  a 
son.  He  pretended  to  entertain  an  unbounded  admiration 


ROOSTAM.  331 

for  Roostam,  whose  frank  arid  generous  heart  was  moved 
by  the  recital  of  his  fictitious  griefs,  and  he  treated  him 
as  a  brother  in  arms. 

They  set  out  together  to  make  war  against  the  King  of 
Cabul,  and  Roostam  vowed  that  he  would  establish  Schug- 
had  on  the  throne  of  his  persecutor.  But  Schughad,  in 
sensible  to  the  generosity  of  Roostam,  caused  deep  ditches 
to  be  dug,  and  the  sides  and  bottom  to  be  covered  with 
lances  and  swords  pointed  upward.  These  ditches,  con 
cealed  by  fascines  covered  with  thin  turf,  lay  in  the  only 
road  that  led  to  the  enemy's  frontier ;  and  at  the  instant 
when  the  King  of  Cabul  appeared  at  the  head  of  his  ar 
my,  Roostam,  urged  by  Schughad,  advanced  precipitately 
with  the  principal  chiefs  to  the  attack,  and  fell  into  the 
ditch.  Their  horses,  whose  legs  were  broken,  struggled 
beneath  their  riders,  who,  thrown  one  upon  the  other, 
were  pierced  by  the  lances.  Roostam's  horse  leaped  upon 
the  bank  of  the  first  ditch,  and  fell  into  the  second.  He 
fell  seven  times,  and  each  time  arose  with  his  rider,  but 
at  last  he  expired,  covered  with  wounds  and  blood.  Roos 
tam,  mortally  wounded,  raised  himself,  and  perceiving 
who  had  been  the  contriver  of  this  cowardly  treachery, 
bent  his  bow,  and  shot  the  miserable  Schughad  to  the 
heart:  then  recommending  his  soul  to  God,  he  expired. 

Thus  lived  and  died  the  renowned  warrior  of  Persia. 
We  are  far  from  having  exhausted  the  incidents  in  the 
life  of  Roostam,  which  overflows  with  marvels.  How  can 
we  concentrate  in  our  simple  language  the  magnitude  of 
this  gigantic  epic  —  this  Iliad  of  the  Indies  ?  Roostam 
was  a  hero  from  infancy  to  death.  He  fought  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave,  and  his  posterity  resembled  him.  He 
was  the  Hercules  of  the  East,  and  possessed  a  colossal 
form,  an  arm,  and  a  club  like  that  of  the  Grecian  demi 
god.  He  overthrew  tyrants  and  monsters  ;  and,  in  the 
midst  of  these  labors,  there  were  moments  of  repose  and 
love  which  showed  that  he  possessed  a  heart,  and  that  his 
strength  could  stoop  to  tenderness.  He  was  great  for  his 


332  ROOSTAM. 

disinterestedness  as  well  as  his  courage,  and  by  generos 
ity  he  governed  while  he  saved.  He  was  one  of  those 
exalted  and  virtuous  minds  who  devote  their  genius  and 
courage  to  the  service  of  empires  fallen  into  anarchy  or 
decay  ;  who  sacrifice  their  lives  for  their  country  or  their 
king,  and  who  seize  with  a  vigorous  hand  the  scattered 
remnants  of  a  monarchy  or  a  republic,  and,  re-establish 
ing  their  nationality,  by  a  natural  gratitude  that  national 
ity  and  their  individual  names  become  blended  into  one. 
Such  men  are  not  kings,  because  their  virtue  will  not  per 
mit  them  to  usurp  the  supreme  authority.  But  they  are 
more,  for  kings  reign  only  in  their  own  times.  These  he 
roes  exercise  sovereignty  over  the  future.  B/oostam  and 
Persia  are  to  this  day  synonymous  terms. 

History,  heightened  by  poetry,  leaves  his  exploits  in 
that  vague  uncertainty  between  reality  and  fable — the 
proper  atmosphere  of  men  and  events  which  soar  above 
the  ordinary  course  of  nature.  But  the  ruins  of  Persepo- 
lis  remain  as  incontestible  witnesses  of  the  existence  of 
B/oostam,  and  of  the  services  he  rendered  to  his  country. 
There  may  be  seen  to  this  day,  amid  the  gigantic  ves 
tiges  of  the  ancient  metropolis  of  Persia,  a  colossal  and 
mysterious  monument  —  a  palace,  tomb,  or  temple  (it  is 
not  ascertained  which),  that  bears  the  name  of  the  horse 
of  Boostam.  Blocks  of  stone  forty  cubits  in  length,  by  ten 
cubits  in  width,  served,  as  at  Baalbec,  for  a  base  to  the 
ruined  building.  Columns  of  a  diameter  and  height  equal 
ly  prodigious,  overthrown  by  earthquakes  or  ruthless  con 
querors,  strew  with  their  fragments  the  foundations  of  the 
edifice,  and  the  foot  of  the  mountain  against  which  this 
palace,  tomb,  or  temple  was  planted.  The  vastness  of 
the  fabric,  and  the  materials  with  which  it  was  construct 
ed,  will  give  the  traveler  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  mem 
ory  of  Boostam  in  Persia.  This  memory,  engraved  on  the 
hewn  sides  of  the  mountain,  smoothed  with  the  chisel  to 
serve  as  a  page  for  the  epitaph  of  the  hero,  is  still  visible 
on  the  bas-reliefs  which  trace  his  exploits.  Doubtless 


ROOSTAM.  333 

these  inscriptions  relate  his  history  ;  but,  as  they  are  writ 
ten  in  an  unknown  tongue,  they  can  not  be  deciphered  by 
any  effort  of  modern  scholarship.  Like  skeletons  from 
whom  the  soul  has  departed,  they  have  preserved  their 
character,  while  they  have  lost  their  meaning.  The  life 
of  Roostam  has  been  effaced  from  stone  monuments,  but 
it  lives  in  the  song  of  the  poet  and  in  the  traditions  of  the 
people.  The  shepherds  and  camel-drivers  of  the  desert 
of  Persepolis  plant  the  stakes  of  their  tents  deep  within 
the  dust  of  these  monuments.  They  compare  the  mass- 
iveness,  regularity,  and  beauty  of  these  edifices  with  the 
insignificance,  misery,  and  instability  of  their  own  tempo 
rary  dwellings,  and  can  not  figure  to  themselves  the  power 
of  a  civilization  which  could  move  such  blocks  and  carve 
such  mountains  to  honor  the  memory  of  an  individual  man. 
They  attribute  these  constructions  to  a  race  intermediate 
between  humanity  and  deity. 

Who  can  decide  whether  the  popular  legend  of  the  ex 
istence  of  giants  spread  throughout  the  earth  is  as  fabulous 
as  now  generally  supposed  in  modern  times  ?*  Perhaps, 
after  all,  it  is  but  an  exaggerated  recollection,  for  what 
ever  is  greater  than  degenerate  man  is  elevated  into  a 
god.  For  us,  whose  imaginations  are  skeptical  of  the  ' 
marvelous,  if  Roostam  be  not  a  deity,  he  is  at  least  a  man 
far  above  the  ordinary  standard.  He  has  not  strength 
alone,  but  moral  grandeur,  disinterestedness,  and  modera 
tion  in  strife  ;  and,  like  a  beam  from  the  Divinity,  he  pos 
sesses  the  sacred  seal,  which  imprints  its  own  fire  on  the 
brow  it  irradiates.  He  who  had  tasted  all  the  intoxica 
tion  of  triumph— who  had  breathed  the  perfume  of  roses, 
had  been  plunged  also  in  the  abyss  of  despair,  and  had 
tasted  the  gall  of  bitterness.  War,  the  originating  princi 
ple  of  this  glory,  was  also  the  instrument  of  his  calamity. 
In  a  terrible  duel  he  killed  his  unknown  son.  His  great 

*  Genesis,  vi.,  4  :  «  There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days." 
It  is  true  that  the  interpreters  of  the  sacred  text  are  not  agreed  as  to 
the  meaning  of  the  word  "giants." 


334  ROOSTAM. 

but  melancholy  career  dazzles  the  imaginative  faculties, 
softens  the  heart,  and  enforces  meditation  and  reflection. 
We  trust  it  contains  a  sufficient  moral  to  justify  us  to 
our  readers  for  giving  it  a  place  in  this  collection ;  and,  as 
we  may  hope,  at  the  same  time,  enough  to  call  for  an  ex 
pression  of  their  sympathy. 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

B.C.  107.     A.U.C.  647. 

THIS  name  represents  not  merely  an  orator,  but  elo 
quence  itself. 

Eloquence,  as  we  understand  it,  and  as  Cicero  himself 
understood  it,  is  not  only  the  art  of  addressing  men  in  pub 
lic — it  is  the  gift  of  strong  feeling,  accurate  thought,  ex 
tensive  knowledge,  splendor  of  imagination,  force  of  ex 
pression,  and  the  power  of  communicating,  in  written  or 
spoken  language,  to  other  men,  the  idea,  the  feeling,  the 
conviction  of  truth,  the  admiration  for  the  beautiful,  the 
disposition  to  uprightness,  the  enthusiasm  for  virtue,  the 
devotion  to  duty,  the  heroic  love  of  country,  and  the  faith 
in  immortality,  which  make  men  honorable — the  feeling 
heart,  the  clear  head,  the  sound  judgment,  the  popular 
knowledge,  the  artistic  imagination,  the  ardent  patriotism, 
the  manly  courage,  the  attachment  to  liberty,  the  pious 
philosophy,  and,  lastly,  the  religion  consonant  with  the 
most  exalted  idea  of  the  divinity,  which  render  the  indi 
vidual  good,  the  people  great,  and  the  human  race  sacred. 

-This  is  what  we  understand  by  the  ideal  of  eloquence. 
It  supposes  in  us  the  possession  and  exercise  of  all  the  in 
tellectual  and  moral  faculties  that  are  involved  in  speech 
— the  power  of  the  human  WORD. 

Never,  perhaps,  did  any  man  unite  all  these  components 
within  himself  to  so  great  an  extent  as  Cicero,  whose  his 
tory  we  are  now  about  to  relate.  Poet,  philosopher,  cit 
izen,  magistrate,  consul,  administrator  of  provinces,  comp 
troller  of  the  Republic,  idol  and  afterward  victim  of  the 
people,  theologian,  jurisconsult,  supreme  orator,  and, above 
all,  a  man  of  honor.  He,  moreover,  enjoyed  the  rare  good 
fortune  of  employing  all  these  various  gifts,  sometimes  in 


336  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

the  amelioration,  enjoyment,  and  relaxation  of  his  mind 
in  solitude,  sometimes  in  the  advancement  of  the  art  of 
eloquence  by  study,  sometimes  in  the  management  of  the 
people,  sometimes  in  the  administration  of  the  public  af 
fairs  of  his  country,  which  were  then  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  and  thu*S  to  apply  his  gifts  and  talents,  his  courage 
and  virtues,  to  the  good  of  his  native  land,  the  benefit  of 
the  human  race,  and  the  worship  of  God,  while  he  was 
perfecting  them  to  his  own  advantage. 

Only  two  faults  could  be  laid  to  his  charge — vainglory 
in  his  opinion  of  himself,  and  real  weakness,  or,  rather, 
a  lamentable  want  of  decision  toward  the  end  of  his  life 
in  his  dealings  with  the  tyrants  of  his  country.  But  these 
two  errors,  if  his  history  be  well  studied,  appear  to  be  not 
so  much  the  faults  of  the  individual  as  the  general  failings 
of  the  time. 

Vanity  was  one  of  the  virtues  of  great  men  at  this  pe 
riod,  when  a  religion,  more  magnanimous  and  more  free 
from  human  follies,  had  not  yet  taught  that  abnegation  of 
self,  modesty,  and  humility,  which  take  away  from  us 
earthly  fame,  but  render  us  more  than  an  equivalent  in  the 
mute  satisfaction  of  conscience  or  in  the  approbation  of  God. 

And  with  reference  to  the  compromises  with  events 
and  tyrants,  with  which,  at  this  distance  of  time.  Cicero 
is  reproached?  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  state  of  the  Ro 
man  Republic,  the  corruption  of  morals,  the  vile  cowardice 
of  the  people,  and  the  social  enervation  of  his  age,  to  be 
just  toward  this  great  man.  At  no  epoch  of  his  admin 
istrative  career  did  he  ever  flinch  from  his  duty.  If  he 
quailed  before  CsBsar,  he  did  not  shrink  before  death  ;  but, 
in  order  to  apply  that  lever  of  moral  strength  which  has 
been  expected  of  him,  and  for  him  alone  to  sustain  the 
Republic  against  Csesar,  he  required  a  resting-point  in  the 
Republic  itself.  Such  a  point  no  longer  existed.  It  was 
not  the  lever,  but  the  fulcrum,  which  Cicero  wanted.  We 
may  pity  the  times,  but  we  must  not  accuse  the  citizen. 

No  form  of  government  was  so  well  fitted  as  the  Roman 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  337 

Republic  to  develop  those  perfect  men,  the  type  of  which 
we  have  just  described  in  the  greatest  orator  of  Rome. 
That  separation  of  faculties,  and  those  professional  lim 
itations,  which  decompose  a  man  into  fractions,  and  lessen 
him  in  the  process  of  subdivision,  had  not  yet  been  invent 
ed.  People  did  not  say,  Here  is  a  civilian,  there  is  a  sol 
dier,  this  man  is  a  poet,  that  man  is  an  orator,  here  is  a 
lawyer,  there  is  a  statesman — you  might  be  all  these  at 
once,  if  Nature  and  education  had  fitted  you  for  it.  It  was 
not  then  the  fashion  to  cut  up  Nature  into  arbitrary  por 
tions,  as  we  unfortunately  do  now,  to  the  great  detriment 
of  a  particular  country  and  of  the  human  race  at  large, 
They  did  not  impose  upon  God  a  maximum  of  faculties, 
which  he  was  not  to  overstep  in  creating  an  intellect  more 
universal,  or  a  soul  greater  than  common.  Ca3sar  pleaded 
causes,  made  verses,  wrote  his  Anti-Cato,  and  conquered 
the  Gauls.  Cicero  wrote  poems  and  treatises  on  rhetoric, 
advocated  at  the  bar,  harangued  the  citizens  from  the  trib 
une,  discussed  public  business  in  the  senate,  collected  taxes 
in  Sicily,  commanded  armies  in  Syria,  studied  philosophy 
with  the  scholars,  and  kept  a  school  of  literature  at  Tuscu- 
lum.  It  was  not  the  profession,  but  the' talents,  that  made 
the  man,  and  he  became  the  greater  as  he  was  the  more 
universal :  and  this  is  the  cause  of  the  superiority  of  the 
versatile  geniuses  of  antiquity.  When  we,  better  advised 
than  at  present,  shall  endeavor  to  emulate  their  greatness, 
we  must  first  sweep  away  the  jealous  and  arbitrary  bar 
riers  that  our  modern  civilization  interposes  between  the 
faculties  of  Nature  and  the  services  that  a  citizen  can 
render  in  various  modes  to  his  country.  We  shall  no 
longer  forbid  a  philosopher  to  be  a  politician,  a  magistrate 
to  be  a  hero,  an  orator  to  be  a  soldier,  a  poet  to  be  a  sage 
or  a  legislator.  We  shall  then  make  men,  and  no  longer 
human  machines.  The  modern  world  will  be  all  the 
stronger  and  the  more  beautiful  for  the  change,  and  the 
more  conformable  to  the  plan  of  God,  who  did  not  intend 
man  for  a  fragment,  but  for  a  whole. 
VOL.  I.— P 


338  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

Cicero,  as  we  find  from  the  descriptions  and  letters  of 
his  contemporaries,  and  from  his  own,  was  tall  of  stature, 
as  is  necessary  for  an  orator  who  has  to  address  the  people, 
and  whose  head  ought  to  overlook  others,  as  his  mind 
must  command  theirs.  His  features  were  severe,  noble, 
pure,  elegant;  lighted  up  by  the  intellect  from  within, 
which  had,  as  we  may  say,  fashioned  them  to  /its  mould. 
A  high  forehead,  smooth  as  a  marble  tablet,  fit  to  receive 
and  to  efface  the  expressions  which  flitted  across  it ;  an 
aquiline  nose,  very  narrow  between  the  eyes  ;  his  glance 
collected,  yet  firm  and  bold  without  ofiensiveness  when  it 
swept  across  the  crowd  ;  a  fine  mouth,  with  lips  well  form 
ed,  expressive,  and  passing  easily  from  the  close-knit  se 
verity  of  deep  thought  to  the  graceful  expansion  of  the 
smile  ;  cheeks  thin,  pale,  and  hollowed  by  the  anxieties 
of  study  and  the  fatigue  of  frequent  harangues.  His  atti 
tude  had  more  of  the  calm  of  the  philosopher  than  of  the 
excitement  of  the  tribune  of  the  people.  With  him  it  was 
not  passion,  but  thought  expanding  and  developing  itself 
before  the  public.  It  was  evidently  his  object  to  enlight 
en,  not  to  blind  the  crowd.  All  the  authority  of  virtue, 
all  the  majesty  of 'the  Republic,  arose  with  him  when  he 
stood  up  to  speak.  A  numerous  and  grave  escort  of  Greek 
rhetoricians,  freedmen,  clients,  and  Roman  citizens,  saved 
by  his  efforts,  accompanied  him  when  he  crossed  the  fo 
rum  to  ascend  the  rostrum.  He  held  in  his  hand  a  roll 
of  paper,  and  a  leaden  stile  to  take  notes  of  his  exordium, 
his  proofs,  his  peroration,  and  the  prepared  or  extempo 
raneous  portions  of  his  speeches.  His  dress,  carefully 
adapted  to  the  ancient  fashion,  had  none  of  the  negligence 
of  the  cynic  or  of  the  softness  of  the  Epicurean.  He  was 
clothed,  not  adorned,  with  a  close-fitting  gown,  falling  in 
perpendicular  folds.  He  objected  to  gay  colors,  which,  by 
attracting  the  eye,  might  diminish  the  attention  of  the  ear. 
His  pallid  countenance,  especially  in  his  youth,  gave  him 
the  interesting  look  of  languor  of  body  overcome  by  energy 
of  mind .  It  bore  tokens  of  his  watchings  and  meditations . 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  339 

With  the  exception  of  his  deep  and  well-trained  voice,  his 
whole  external  appearance  was  that  of  a  pure  intellect 
uality,  borrowing  from -matter  only  the  form  strictly  neces 
sary  to  render  it  perceptible  to  human  nature. 

But  the  Romans,  who,  like  the  Greeks,  were  accustom 
ed  by  their  forensic  habits  to  judge  artistically  of  their 
orators,  appreciated  in  Csesar  and  in  Hortensius  that  phy 
sical  attenuation  which  attests  study,  acute  feeling,  want 
of  sleep,  and  mental  labor.  The  thin  figure  and  pale  face 
of  Cicero  enhanced  his  prestige  and  his  majesty. 

Marcus  Tullius  Cicero  was  born  in  a  little  municipal 
borough  near  Rome,  called  Arpinum,  the  birth-place  of 
Caius  Marius.  His  mother — Helvia,  a  woman  remarkable 
for  courage  and  virtue,  like  all  women  whose  sons  make 
great  men — bore  him  without  pain.  An  old  legend  re 
marks  that  a  genius  appeared  to  his  nurse,  and  told  her 
that  the  child  she  suckled  was  destined  to  be  the  salvation 
of  Rome.  The  interpretation  of  this  legend  is,  that  the 
countenance  and  look  of  the  child  raised  in  the  hearts  of 
his  mother  and  nurse  some  vague  presentiment  of  innate 
superiority.  Helvia  was  of  illustrious  birth.  Her  father's 
family  cultivated  in  obscurity  a  small  estate  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Arpinum,  without  seeking  public  offices,  and 
without  visiting  Rome,  content  with  a  moderate  fortune 
and  local  respect  in  their  own  province.  Notwithstand 
ing  the  newness  of  his  name,  which  Marcus  Tullius  was 
the  first  to  make  known  in  Rome,  the  family  was  said  to 
be  lineally  descended  from  the  ancient  princes  of  Latium. 
The  grandfather  and  uncles  of  Cicero  had  already  distin 
guished  themselves  by  their  aptitude  for  affairs,  and  by 
some  unexpected  proofs  of  eloquence  in  deputations  sent 
from  their  town  to  Rome  to  maintain  their  municipal  in 
terests.  It  is  seldom  that  genius  is  isolated  in  a  race  ; 
the  germ  of  it  almost  always  appears  before  the  perfect 
fruit  bursts  forth.  By  tracing  up  a  family  for  several  gen 
erations,  we  usually  find  some  precursors  of  the  great 
man  whom  Nature  seems  to  be  gradually  preparing  in  it. 


340  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  poetical  family  of  Tasso,  whose  fa 
ther  was  a  poet  of  second  rank  ;  thus  also  with  the  family 
of  Mirabeau,  whose  father,  and  especially  whose  uncles, 
were  natural  and  untaught  orators — more  rude,  but  per 
haps  also  more  vigorous,  than  their  nephew.  So  it  was 
with  Cicero,  and  with  many  others.  Nature  takes  a  long 
time  in  quietly  preparing  its  master-pieces  of  the  human 
race,  as  it  does  in  the  mineral  and  vegetable  creations. 
Man  is  a  creature  of  succession,  who  collects  and  combines 
in  a  single  mind  the  mental  qualities  of  perhaps  a  hundred 
generations. 

These  oratorical  and  literary  tastes  and  tendencies  of 
Cicero's  family,  and  that  tenderness  which,  in  the  heart 
of  a  noble  mother,  changes  into  ambition  for  her  son, 
caused  the  child,  whose  infancy  promised  so  much  honor 
to  the  house,  to  be  brought  up  in  the  study  of  Greek  and 
Roman  letters.  Greek  literature  was  then  to  the  young 
Romans  what  Latin  literature  has  since  been  to  us — the 
tradition  of  the  human  mind,  the  model  of  our  language, 
the* great  repertory  of  the  knowledge  of  our  ancestors. 
The  quick  and  universal  genius  of  the  child  burst  forth, 
rather  than  progressed,  with  the  first  lessons  which  he  re 
ceived  under  his  mother's  eyes,  before  he  left  the  nursery. 
His  vocation  to  intellectual  pursuits  was  so  quick,  so  mar 
velous,  and  so  unanimously  recognized  by  all  around  him 
in  the  schools  of  Arpinum,  that  he  tasted  the  cup  of  glory, 
which  he  was  afterward  to  drain  to  its  dregs,  almost  as 
soon  as  he  tasted  life.  His  little  schoolfellows  called  him 
their  scholar-king ;  they  related  to  their  parents,  as  they 
came  home  from  their  lessons,  the  wonderful  feats  of  in 
telligence  and  memory  of  Helvia's  son,  and  they  used  to 
escort  him  to  his  house-door  as  the  patron  of  their  child 
hood.  Superiority  among  men  and  children,  when  it  is 
immeasurable,  creates  no  envy.  It  is  received  and  acqui 
esced  in  as  a  prodigy  ;  and  as  prodigies  are  isolated,  and 
not  frequently  met  with,  they  call  forth,  not  jealousy,  but 
wonder.  Such  was  the  feeling  to  which  Cicero's  child- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  341 

hood  gave  rise  among  the  boys  of  Arpinum.  Would  that 
he  could  afterward  have  inspired  as  noble  and  honorable 
a  sentiment  in  Clodius,  in  Octavius,  and  in  Antony ! 

Poetry,  the  early  flower  of  the  soul,  was  the  first  to  en 
gage  him.  Poetry  is  the  morning  djceam  of  great  minds, 
foreshadowing  the  future  realities  of  life  :  it  evokes  the 
phantasms  of  all  things  before  the  things  themselves  ap 
pear  ;  it  is  the  prelude  to  thought  and  the  precursor  of 
action.  Overflowing  intellects,  like  Csesar,  Cicero,  Brutus, 
Solon,  and  Plato,  begin  by  imagination  and  poetry — the 
exuberance  of  mental  vigor  in  heroes,  statesmen,  philos 
ophers,  and  orators.  Sad  is  his  lot  who,  once  at  least  in 
his  life,  has  not  been  a  poet ! 

Cicero  was  a  poet  always — early,  long,  and  late.  He 
became  a  transcendent  orator  only  because  he  was  a  poet. 
Poetry  is  the  orator's  arsenal.  Open  Demosthenes,  Cicero, 
Chatham,  Mirabeau,  Vergniaud — wherever  these  orators 
are  sublime,  they  are  poetical.  The  fragments  of  their 
oratory,  which  we  retain  forever,  are  images  and  senti 
ments  worthy  of  being  sung  and  immortalized  in  verse. 

On  reaching  manhood,  Cicero  published  several  poems, 
which  placed  him  (the  historians  say)  among  the  renown 
ed  poets  of  his  age.  Plutarch  states  that  his  verses  equal 
ed  his  eloquence. 

He  at  the  same  moment  studied  philosophy  under  the 
Greek  masters  of  this  science,  which  includes  all  others. 
He  especially  attended  the  lessons  of  Philo,  a  follower  of 
Plato.  He  thus  opened  his  soul  entirely  to  learning,  wis 
dom,  inspiration,  and  eloquence.  Collecting  all  that  had 
been  most  beautifully  thought,  said,  or  sung  upon  earth . 
before  his  time,  to  form  in  his  mind  a  never-failing  treas 
ure  of  facts,  examples,  images,  oratory,  and  moral  or  ethi 
cal  beauty,  he  proposed  to  increase  and  afterward  exhaust 
this  treasure  during  his  life,  for  the  honor  of  his  country 
and  his  own  glory — a  terrestrial  immortality  which  the 
men  of  that  epoch  made  one  of  the  leading  objects  and 
rewards  of  virtue. 


342  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

He  also  assiduously  attended  the  tribunals  and  meet 
ings  in  the  forum — that  tribunal  of  political  debate  in  the 
presence  of  the  people — listening  to  and  observing  the 
great  contemporary  masters  of  debate — Scsevola,  Horten- 
sius,  Cotta,  Crassus,  and  especially  the  elder  Antonius, 
whose  eloquence  he  has  himself  immortalized  in  his  treat 
ises  on  the  art.  He  was  proud  to  be  their  disciple  ;  and 
he  made  it  a  practice,  on  returning  home  after  hearing 
them,  to  write  out  from  memory  those  passages  from  their 
harangues  which  had  either  roused  the  multitude  or 
pleased  his  own  mind.  Still  unknown  himself  as  an  or 
ator,  his  renown  as  a  poet  was  spread  all  over  Rome  by 
the  publication  of  an  epic  poem  on  the  wars  and  fate  of 
Marius,  his  illustrious  fellow-townsman. 

Borne  had  then  reached  one  of  those  fearful  crises 
which  seize  upon  empires  and  republics  at  the  very  mo 
ment  when  their  institutions  have  led  them  to  the  high 
est  point  of  glory,  virtue,  and  liberty  which  Providence 
permits  them  to  reach.  On  arriving  at  this  culminating 
point  of  their  existence  and  of  their  principles,  nations  be 
gin  to  totter  on  their  foundations  before  dashing  down 
into  decay,  as  if  by  a  sort  of  giddiness  in  prosperity,  or  by 
some  law  of  our  imperfect  nature.  These  are  the  times 
when  nations  produce  the  most  virtuous  and  the  most 
profligate  of  men,  as  if  to  prepare  more  sublime  and  more 
atrocious  actors  for  the  great  dramas  they  give  to  history. 
Cicero  was  born  precisely  at  the  moment  of  the  culmina 
tion  and  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Republic ;  so  that  his 
history,  combined  with  that  of  his  country  from  his  birth 
to  his  execution,  is  equally  that  of  the  most  memorable 
and  most  execrable  characters  the  world  has  produced ; 
of  the  most  singular  virtues  and  of  the  greatest  crimes ; 
of  the  most  splendid  triumphs  and  terrible  disasters  of 
Rome.  The  liberty  and  the  empire  of  the  universe  were 
alternately  won  and  lost  in  the  great  game  that  was  play 
ed  for  more  than  half  a  century  by  him  and  around  him. 
The  mind  of  a  single  man  is  the  focus  of  millions,  and  his 
voice  is  the  echo  of  the  whole  creation. 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  343 

The  principle  of  the  Roman  Republic  was  the  success 
ive  annexation  first  of  Italy,  then  of  Europe,  and  finally  of 
all  the  known  world,  to  the  dominion  of  the  Romans. 
Expansion  was  the  law  of  their  existence  :  war  alone 
could  increase  their  territory  :  war  was  therefore  the  ne 
cessity  of  the  nation.  Defensive  in  its  origin,  Roman  war 
afterward  became  offensive,  and  finally  universal.  "War 
creates  a  thirst  for  glory .;  glory  gives  popularity ;  popu 
larity  gives  political  power  to  the  ambitious.  A  triumph 
at  Rome  had  become  a  regular  institution  ;  this  institu 
tion  gave,  as  we  may  say,  an  objective  character  to  re 
nown,  and  made  those  who  triumphed  candidates  for  tyr 
anny. 

To  keep  up  this  frequent  recurrence  of  triumphs  with 
perpetual  and  universal  war,  numerous  armies  of  a  per 
manent  character  also  became  necessary.  A  large  stand 
ing  army  is  the  institution  of  all  others  the  most  fatal  to 
liberty  and  to  the  power,  exclusively  moral,  of  the  law. 
Those  which,  collected  into  legions,  remained  stationary  in 
the  conquered  provinces  or  in  Italy,  began  to  raise  their 
generals  above  the  senate  and  the  people,  and  to  form  for 
or  against  these  generals  great  military  factions,  of  a  far 
more  dangerous  description  than  civil  combinations.  The 
disbanded  troops,  to  whom  lands  had  been  allotted,  consti 
tuted  in  Italy  itself,  and  in  the  Campagna  of  Rome,  a  nu 
cleus  of  malcontents  always  ready  to  have  recourse  to- 
arms,  their  only  trade,  and  to  supply  bands  orlegions  for 
political  contests  to  democratic  tribunes  or  ambitious  com 
manders.  The  senate  and  people  were  thus  ripe  for  be 
ing  overpowered  and  conquered,  even  in  Rome  itself,  by 
the  very  war  and  glory  they  had  designed  for  the  subju 
gation  of  the  universe.  They  had  sent  out  tyrants  into 
the  world,  and  the  vanquished  world  sent  them  back  do 
mestic  tyrants  to  their  homes.  Already  the  sword  defied 
the  law  ;  already,  under  an  apparent  respect  for  the  nom 
inal  authority  of  the  senate,  generals  and  triumphant  lead 
ers  bargained  with  each  other  for  offices  and  consulships. 


344  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

The  governors  of  provinces  exchanged  legions,  or  lent  each 
other  armies,  to  be  returned  after  the  time  required  by  law. 
Rome  had  become  a  vast  anarchy,  ruling  the  world  exter 
nally,  but  internally  with  the  real  sovereignty  transferred 
from  the  citizens  to  the  legions — the  Constitution  retain 
ing  nothing  but  its  form,  the  generals  becoming  tribunes, 
and  the  factions  being  the  camps. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  Roman  Republic  when  Cic 
ero  assumed  the  gown  of  manhood,  to  act  his  part  as  a 
citizen,  orator,  and  magistrate  in  the  stirring  scenes  of  this 
eventful  period. 

Marius,  a  plebeian  of  Arpinum,  after  acquiring  fame  in 
the  field,  and  saving  Italy  from  the  first  invasion  of  the 
barbarians  of  the  north,  took  part  in  Rome  with  the  peo 
ple  against  the  patricians  and  the  senate.  An  armed  and 
ferocious  demagogue,  he  lent  his  legions  to  the  plebeians 
to  destroy  the  aristocracy.  His  proscriptions  and  assassi 
nations  decimated  Rome,  and  deluged  Italy  with  blood. 
Sylla,  a  patrician  of  Rome,  first  the  lieutenant,  afterward 
the  rival  of  Marius,  in  his  turn  deprived  him  of  his  legions 
and  his  glory,  brought  them  back  against  his  country,  pro 
scribed  the  proscribers,  slaughtered  the  butchers,  massa 
cred  the  people  by  wholesale,  enslaved  the  senate  on  re 
establishing  it,  raised  the  slaves  to  the  rank  of  Roman  cit 
izens,  distributed  the  lands  of  the  proscribed  among  his 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  legionaries,  then  abdicated 
with  all  th*e  prestige  of  the  terror  with  which  he  had  im 
bued  the  people,  and  set  again  in  action  the  mechanism 
of  the  ancient  Constitution,  shattered,  bent,  and  blood 
stained  by  himself.  A  war  called  the  Social  War — a  war 
between  the  allies  of  the  Republic  and  Rome  itself — had 
still  further  complicated,  by  the  insurrection  of  Italy,  this 
medley  of  events,  passions,  proscriptions,  blood,  and  crimes. 
Sylla  was  triumphant.  The  good  citizens  of  Rome  en 
rolled  themselves  to  defend  their  country  even  under  the 
dictatorship  of  a  tyrant.  Cicero  followed  his  model  and 
master,  the  orator  Hortensius,  to  the  war.  He  returned 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  345 

from  it  with  the  victorious  legions  of  Sylla,  to  witness  with 
horror  the  disappearance  of  all  liberty,  the  dictatorships, 
the  proscriptions,  and  the  massacres  of  Rome.  His  ex 
treme  youth  and  his  studious  life  at  Arpinum  sheltered 
him,  not  from  the  misfortunes,  but  from  the  dangers  of  the 
times.  He  reappeared  after  the  violent  but  complete  re- 
establishment  of  the  constitution  and  senate  by  Sylla.  He 
prepared  himself  for  the  political  tribune  and  the  offices 
of  the  Republic  by  practice  at  the  bar — the  usual  appren 
ticeship  of  the  young  Romans,  who  thus  endeavored  to 
earn  the  esteem  and  gratitude  of  the  people  before  can 
vassing  their  votes  for  the  magistracy.  He  at  the  same 
time  published  works  on  language,  rhetoric,  and  oratory, 
which  evince  the  depth  and  universality  of  his  studies. 
His  first  speeches  on  behalf  of  his  clients  astonished  the 
most  finished  orators  of  Rome.  He  became  celebrated  as 
the  model  of  a  perfection  theretofore  unknown  in  the  ad 
vocacy  of  private  lawsuits.  The  invention  of  argument, 
the  sequence  of  facts,  the  arrangement  of  testimony,  the 
elevation  of  thought,  the  force  of  reasoning,  the  harmony 
of  language,  the  novelty  and  brilliancy  of  metaphor,  the 
intense  appearance  of  conviction,  the  pathetic  narration, 
the  grace  and  elegance  of  his  exordium,  the  power  and 
energy  of  his  peroration,  the  beauty  of  his  diction,  the  maj 
esty  of  his  deportment,  the  dignity  of  his  aspect — all  this 
in  a  few  years  raised  the  young  orator  to  the  summit  of 
his  profession.  His  discourses — prepared  in  the  silence 
of  nocturnal  study  ;  noted  down  and  written  out  at  leis 
ure  ;  altered,  rewritten,  and  again  corrected,  then  care 
fully  compared  with  the  models  of  Grecian  eloquence  ; 
learned  piece  by  piece,  sometimes  at  the  bath,  sometimes 
in  his  garden,  sometimes  in  his  walks  about  Rome  ;  re 
cited  before  his  friends,  and  submitted  to  the  criticism  of 
his  rivals  or  of  his  masters — pronounced  in  public  in  the 
ringing  tdhe  necessary  to  make  it  heard  above  the  crowd, 
and  enriched  with  those  sudden  sallies,  which  add  the  ef 
fect  of  surprise  and  the  fire  of  improvisation  to  the  solid- 

P2 


346  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

ity  and  strength  of  carefully  digested  compositions,  were 
remarkable  events  in  Rome.  They  exist,  revised  and  pub 
lished  by  the  orator  himself,  and  are  still  treasures  to  pos 
terity.  We  shall  not  discuss  them.  They  fill  whole  vol 
umes,  and  are  among  the  most  wonderful  monuments  of 
human  genius. 

These  speeches  were  the  foundation  of  the  renown  and 
public  life  of  the  young  Cicero.  But  he  was  consumed 
by  the  fire  of  his  own  genius  ;  his  frail  body  could  not 
bear  the  excess  of  study,  of  public  speaking,  and  of  pri 
vate  practice  at  the  law.  His  emaciation,  his  paleness, 
his  frequent  fainting-fits,  and  want  of  sleep ;  his  voice, 
broken  by  the  effort  to  meet  the  avidity  and  applause  of 
the  crowd ;  his  early  exhaustion,  which,  for  the  sake  of 
too  early  success  at  the  bar  and  in  literature,  threatened  a 
life  fitted  for  a  higher  and  more  enduring  fame ;  possibly 
also  the  advice  of  friends  to  avoid  attracting  the  attention 
of  Sylla,  who  might  have  taken  umbrage  at  the  increas 
ing  renown  of  the  young  favorite  of  the  people,  and  to 
whom  Cicero  had  given  offense  by  defending  a  proscribed 
person  whose  part  no  one  else  had  dared  to  take  up — 
these  causes,  and,  above  all,  the  desire  of  studying  Gre 
cian  customs  in  Greece  itself,  induced  Cicero  to  quit  Rome 
and  the  bar,  and  to  visit  Athens. 

On  his  arrival  there,  he  gave  himself  up  completely, 
under  the  most  celebrated  Grecian  teachers,  to  the  study 
of  philosophy.  Fascinated  by  these  pursuits,  which  with 
drew  the  mind  from  earthly  thoughts  to  dwell  on  the  im 
material  creation,  he  had  for  a  time  given  up  Rome,  am 
bition,  and  glory.  Intimate  with  Atticus — a  rich  Roman, 
who,  with  the  spirit  of  a  thorough  voluptuary,  valued 
things  only  in  proportion  to  the  pleasure  they  afforded 
him — Cicero  proposed  to  collect  his  little  fortune,  and  to 
establish  himself  at  Athens,  in  order  to  pass  the  remain 
der  of  his  life  obscurely  in  the  study  of  the  beautiful,  the 
search  after  truth,  and  the  enjoyment  of  art.  But  his 
health  was  improving :  the  masters  of  the  most  celebrated 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  347 

schools  of  eloquence  of  Athens,  Rhodes,  and  Ionia  came 
from  afar  to  hear  him  lecture  in  the  academies  of  Attica ; 
and,  full  of  admiration  for  the  young  barbarian,  confessed 
with  tears  that  Rome  had  beaten  them  in  fight,  and  that 
a  Roman  excelled  them  in  eloquence.     He  could  teach 
them  reason  and  common  sense  :  they  gave  him  lessons 
in  the  arrangement  of  words,  in  harmony,  intonation,  and 
gesture.     The  news  of  the  death  of  Sylla,  which  just  then 
reached  Athens,  and  promised  a  new  lease  of  liberty  to 
Rome,  enticed  Cicero   away  from  his   studies.      He  fel 
himself  called  upon  to  watch  events,  and  he  departed  for 
Rome,  after  taking  a  tour  in  Asia  Minor,  to  visit  all  the 
great  schools  of  literature  and  eloquence,  and  to  ascertain 
whether  those  famous  temples,  from  which  Rome  had  re 
ceived  the  superstitions   and  fables  of  paganism,  did  not 
contain  the  hidden  word  of  the  Divinity,  the  great  object 
of  his  study.     He  consulted  the  oracles.     The  oracle  of 
the  fane  of  Delphi  taught  him  the  great  principle  of  all 
good  men  who  are  invited  to  take  part  in  the  events  of 
their  country  in  times  of  revolution. 

«  By  what  means,"  Cicero  inquired,  "  shall  I  attain  the 
greatest  and  most  honorable  fame  ?" 

"  By  always  following  the  dictates  of  your  own  judg 
ment,  and  not  the  opinion  of  the  multitude,"  was  the  re 
ply  of  the  oracle. 

He  was  struck  with  this  answer ;  and  by  adapting  his 
life  to  it,  he  earned  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  honor,  his 
glory,  and  his  death. 

On  his  return  to  Rome,  he  lived  for  some  years  in  re 
tirement,  without  attaching  himself  to  any  of  the  factions 
which  divided  the  Republic,  or  following  in  the  train  of 
any  of  the  leaders  of  parties,  whose  favor  was  the  step 
ping-stone  to  office,  or  asking  any  thing  of  the  people. 
He  was  despised,  the  historians  relate,  for  the  contempt 
in  which  he  held  men  and  riches,  and  for  the  high  value 
he  set  upon  mere  mental  acquirements.  They  called  him 
a  poet,  a  man  of  letters^,  Gracianized  and  speculative 


348  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

philosopher,  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  useless 
things.  The  vulgar  in  all  ages  despise  what  is  not  vul 
gar  like  themselves.  Cicero  cared  little  for  their  ridicule, 
and  continued  to  improve  himself  silently,  from  pure  love 
of  the  beautiful  and  true.  At  that  time  he  lived  in  inti 
macy  with  the  greatest  actor  of  the  Reman  stage,  Roscius. 
Each  was  a  study  to  the  other :  the  actor  endeavored  to 
imitate  the  tones,  gestures,  and  attitudes  with  which  Na 
ture  had  inspired  Cicero  ;  the  orator  tried  to  adopt  the  ac 
tion  which  Art  had  taught  to  Roscius  ;  and  this  contest 
between  inspiring  Nature  and  controlling  Art  produced  in 
each  perfect! on — which,  for  the  actor,  consists  in  attempting 
on  the  stage  nothing  that  does  not  spring  from  Nature ;  and 
for  the  orator,  in  uttering  from  the  tribune  nothing  that  is 
not  recognized  by  Art,  and  conformable  to  the  supreme 
adaptation  of  all  things,  which  is  comprised  in  beauty. 

Meanwhile,  Cicero's  parents,  relations,  and  friends  beg 
ged  him  to  do  violence  to  his  love  for  retirement,  and  not 
to  deprive  the  Republic,  in  times  of  difficulty,  of  the  en 
dowments  which  he  had  accumulated  by  the  gift  of  the 
gods,  and  his  own  studies,  erudition,  and  travels.  "  Vir 
tue  and  eloquence  were  only  given  to  him,"  they  said, 
"  as  two  divine  weapons  for  the  great  struggle  impending 
between  the  good  and  the  wicked,  between  the  Republic 
and  tyranny,  and  between  the  anarchy  of  demagogues  and 
the  liberty  of  good  citizens."  He  yielded  to  their  repre 
sentations,  and  became  a  candidate  for  the  qurestorship  in 
the  same  year  that  the  two  greatest  orators  of  the  day, 
his  masters  and  models,  Hortensius  and  Cotta,  tried  for 
the  consulship — the  highest  magistracy  in  Rome,  held 
only  for  one  year  at  a  time.  The  popple,  tired  of  soldiers, 
who  had  shed  the  blood  of  Rome  long  enough,  endeavored 
to  secure  their  liberty  and  the  reappointment  of  tribunes 
by  returning  them  all  three.  The  qusestorship  was  a  sec 
ondary  office,  which  gave  the  holder  a  seat  in  the  senate. 
The  quaestor's  duty  was  to  receive  the  taxes,  and  to  sup 
ply  Rome  with  provisions.  ChMice,  which  distributed  the 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  349 

provinces  among  the  elected  officers,  allotted  Sicily  to 
Cicero.  While  preventing  by  his  judicious  arrangements 
the  famine  which  threatened  the  Roman  people,  he  con 
ciliated  Sicily,  and  secured  the  attachment  of  the  depend 
ency.  He  made  a  tour  through  the  whole  island,  less  as 
a  proconsul  than  as  a  philosopher  and  historian,  desirous 
of  searching  in  its  ruins  for  the  vestiges  of  its  ancient 
greatness.  He  discovered  the  sepulchre  of  Archimedes, 
one  of  the  greatest  mechanics  that  ever  appeared  among 
men ;  and  he  had  the  tomb  of  this  divine  geometrician 
repaired  at  his  own  expense. 

Full  of  the  renown  which  his  name,  his  eloquence,  and 
his  successful  government  gave  him  in  Sicily,  he  was  as 
tonished,  on  returning  to  Rome,  to  find  his  pretensions 
alike  forgotten  amid  the  ever-recurring  tumult  of  an  im 
mense  capital  absorbed  in  its  own  interests,  passions, 
amusements,  and  rumors,  and  divided  between  its  tribunes, 
its  demagogues,  and  its  orators.  He  saw  that,  to  command 
this  fickle  and  sensual  mob,  it  was  necessary  not  to  be  out 
of  sight  even  for  a  day.  He  married  Terentia,  a  lady  of 
noble  birth  but  moderate  property.  He  purchased  a  resi 
dence  nearer  the  centre  of  business  than  his  paternal  abode, 
which  was  situated  in  the  district  of  the  idle  and  opulent. 
He  kept  open  house  at  all  hours  for  the  crowd  of  clients 
and  lawyers  who  always,  in  Rome,  flocked  round  the  doors 
of  public  characters.  He  committed  to  memory  the  names 
and  circumstances  of  all  the  citizens  of  Rome,  so  as  to  flat 
ter  them  by  that  which  always  flatters  men  most — mark 
ed  attention  paid  to  them  in  public,  and  to  accost  them  by 
name  whenever  they  addressed  him  in  the  street.  He 
thus  ceased  to  have  occasion  for  the  services  of  a  freedman 
called  "  the  nomendator"  who  usually  followed  candidates 
for  office,  or  magistrates,  to  whisper  to  them  the  appella 
tions  of  the  citizens. 

Having  reached  the  age  of  forty-one  years,  and  possess 
ing,  by  his  own  inheritance  and  the  dowry  of  his  wife  Te 
rentia,  a  fortune  which  was  never  splendid — for  he  never 


350  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

pleaded,  except  gratuitously,  for  justice  or  honor,  consider 
ing  that  oratory  was  of  too  great  value  to  be  matter  of 
sale  ;  enjoying  the  friendship  of  the  greatest,  the  most 
learned,  arid  the  most  virtuous  citizens  of  the  Republic — 
Hortensius,  Cato,  Brutus,  Atticus,  and  Pompey  ;  the  father 
of  a  son.  whom  he  expected  to  see  rivaling  his  fame,  and 
of  a  daughter  whom  he  loved  as  the  hope  of  his  future  ; 
spending  his  surplus  only  in  the  purchase  of  rare  books 
which  his  friend  the  rich  and  learned  Atticus  forwarded 
to  him  from  Athens  ;  dividing  his  time  between  the  pub 
lic  affairs  of  Rome,  and  his  summer  retirement  to  his  coun 
try  houses  at  Arpinum,  among  the  mountains  where  his 
fathers  had  lived  ;  at  Cumse,  on  the  shore  of  the  Bay  of 
Naples ;  at  Tusculum,  the  foot  of  the  Alban  Mount,  se 
cluded  and  delightful  spots  ;  measuring  his  hours  in  these 
retreats  as  a  miser  metes  his  gold  ;  allotting  some  to  elo 
quence,  some  to  poetry,  and  others  to  philosophy  ;  some 
to  correspondence,  or  conversation  with  his  friends,  some 
to  strolling  among  the  trees  he  had  planted  and  the  statues 
he  had  collected  ;  others  to  his  meals,  and  few  indeed  to 
sleep  ;  losing  none  for  labor,  mental  gratification,  or  health ; 
going  to  bed  with  the  sun,  and  rising  before  dawn,  to  col 
lect  his  thoughts  in  all  their  vigor  before  the  noise  of  the 
day  began — his  health  became  restored.  His  body  ac 
quired  the  appearance  of  vigor,  his  voice  resumed  its  man 
ly  strength  and  ringing  tones,  like  those  which  Demosthe 
nes  poured  forth,  echoing  above  the  roar  of  the  waves,  and 
necessary  above  all  things  to  the  man  who  must  still  the 
tumult  of  an  angry  crowd.  He  was  wise,  honored,  belov 
ed,  happy,  but  not  yet  a  mark  for  envy.  Destiny  seemed 
to  bestow  upon  him  all  at  once,  at  the  beginning  of  his  life, 
that  share  of  happiness  and  calm  which  it  measures  out 
to  every  one  at  some  time  in  the  course  of  his  career,  as 
if  to  make  him  feel  the  more  keenly,  by  comparison  and 
memory,  the  years  of  trouble,  tumult,  vexation,  and  anguish 
through  which  he  has  to  pass  to  the  grave. 

Six  years  after  his  qusestorship  in  Sicily,  Cicero  was 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  351 

unanimously  elected  jedile  by  the  people  assembled  in 
tribes.  The  duty  of  an  ssdile  was  to  attend  to  the  im 
provement  of  the  city,  and  to  take  charge  of  the  public 
show's  given  to  the  populace.  The  multitude,  greedy  of 
these  shows,  expected  that  Sicily,  of  which  Cicero  had 
won  the  attachment  and  gratitude,  would  send  him  gladia 
tors,  comedians,  and  wild  beasts,  to  give  brilliancy  to  his 
sedileship.  Their  office  gave  the  sediles  the  right  of  ex 
hibiting  in  the  vestibule  of  their  houses  the  images  or 
statues  of  their  ancestors.  Cicero,  who  had  no  ancestors 
of  note,  exhibited  no  statues.  He  accepted  without  hu 
miliation  the  title  of  "  a  new  man,"  which  the  Romans 
gave  to  all  those  who  made  themselves  a  name  instead  of 
inheriting  one.  He  thus  stood  in  the  middle  point  be 
tween  the  aristocracy  and  the  democracy — a  position  fa 
vorable  to  unbiased  equity  between  the  two  factions  which 
distracted  Rome  ;  a  plebeian  by  birth,  a  patrician  by  po 
sition  and  feelings.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  wrote,  at 
the  instigation  of  the  Sicilians,  those  memorable  harangues 
against  Verres,  who  had  despoiled  the  province  of  its  mas 
ter-pieces  of  art  and  national  monuments.  These  ha 
rangues,  only  one  of  which  was  spoken,  have  made  the 
name  of  Verres  forever  the  type  of  gigantic  peculators. 
In  after  years,  Cicero,  no  doubt  repenting  of  having  given 
the  memory  of  the  Sicilian  praetor  an  immortality  more  in 
famous  than  it  deserved,  gave  him  assistance  from  his  own 
purse  when  this  proconsul  had  fallen  into  indigence  and 
distress. 

Two  years  after  his  sedileship  he  became  a  candidate 
for  the  praetorship — a  magistracy  which  was  subordinate 
only  to  the  first,  namely,  the  consulship.  He  then  sided 
in  the  senate  with  the  idol  of  the  Roman  aristocracy, 
Cneius  Pompey,  who  demanded  unlimited  powers,  in  order 
to  clear  the  seas  of  the  Cilician  pirates,  who  blockaded  the 
coast  of  Italy.  Cicero's  eloquence  prevailed  over  the  op 
position  of  the  demagogues  :  Pompey  became  dictator,  arid 
Cicero  prsetor. 


352  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

His  renown  for  integrity  was  such  that  a  person  ac 
cused  of  peculation,  named  Macer,  a  friend  and  protege  of 
Crassus,  the  richest  of  the  Romans,  having  heard  that  Cic 
ero  had  decided  to  vote  against  him,  gave  intimation  that 
he  felt  his  cause  to  he  already  judged,  since  Cicero  was 
opposed  to  him  ;  and  retiring  to  his  house,  without  per 
mitting  his  lawyers  to  plead  his  cause,  he  laid  himself 
down  and  committed  suicide,  considering  that  Cicero's  con 
demnation  was  the  verdict  of  the  gods. 

Until  then,  however,  notwithstanding  the  maturity  of 
his  age,  and  his  persevering  studies  to  attain  perfection  in 
the  arts  of  oratory,  he  had  only  spoken  before  the  courts 
or  before  the  senate  ;  but  he  had  not  thought  himself  qual 
ified  for  mounting  the  rostrum,  and  addressing  the  people 
on  public  affairs.  The  people  seemed  to  him  the  most 
formidable  and  difficult  of  audiences.  It  required,  he  used 
to  say,  an  eloquence  as  bold,  as  varied,  as  abrupt,  and  as 
vigorous  as  the  populace  itself.  Half  a  life  was  not  too 
much  preparation  for  the  trial. 

He  risked  it,  for  the  first  time,  to  obtain  the  prolonga 
tion  of  the  naval  and  military  dictatorship  which  had  been 
given  to  Pompey,  and  which  it  was  proposed  to  shorten. 
He  triumphed.  This  triumph  two  years  afterward  ob 
tained  for  him  the  consulship — the  object  of  his  ambition, 
and  the  foundation  of  his  glory.  Little  liked  by  the  mul 
titude,  whose  disorders  he  opposed — without  any  hold  on 
the  aristocracy,  to  which  he  did  not  belong  by  birth — he 
could  only  rise  by  his  talents  and  services  to  this  supreme 
elective  magistracy.  Two  fatal  men,  who  belonged  both 
to  the  great  families  by  their  birth,  and  to  the  multitude 
by  their  complaisance  and  vile  adulation  of  its  excesses — 
Marc  Antony  and  Catiline — were  his  opponents.  He  be 
gan  by  winning  over  Antony,  a  man  without  character, 
and  the  less  dangerous  of  his  rivals,  by  promising  to  serve 
his  ambition  (which  was  mere  vanity),  to  accept  him  for 
his  colleague  in  the  consulate,  and  to  leave  him  the  entire 
government  of  Italy  beyond  the  walls  of  Home.  Having 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  353 

thus  broken  the  league  between  his  opponents,  he  made 
such  an  energetic  attack  in  the  senate  on  the  turbulent 
and  democratic  policy  of  Catiline,  that  the  aristocracy,  glad 
to  meet  with  such  support,  and  the  people,  anxious  to  com 
mand  such  eloquence,  named  him,  not  by  votes,  but  by  ac 
clamation,  consul,  with  Antony  for  his  colleague.  He  kept 
his  word  with  his  colleague,  and  procured  for  him  what 
he  desired,  the  control  of  Italy.  As  for  himself,  he  re 
mained  in  Rome  to  preserve  the  Republic  from  the  con 
fusion  and  insurrection  daily  threatening  the  city  during 
the  absence  of  Pompey,  who  was  then  in  Asia. 

It  was  not  long  before  these  extreme  circumstances  pre 
sented  themselves.  Independently  of  the  great  military 
factions  of  which  we  have  spoken — factions  represented 
by  Marius,  by  Sylla,  by  Pompey,  and  afterward  by  Caesar 
— independently  also  of  the  permanent  factions  of  patri 
cians  and  plebeians,  which  had  distracted  the  Republic  for 
centuries,  there  was  in  Rome  a  faction  of  anarchy,  democ 
racy,  and  crime,  which  underlay  the  others,  and  which  only 
awaited,  to  overthrow  and  drown  them  all  in  blood,  the 
opportunity  of  a  civil  contest  or  weakness  in  the  govern 
ment.  The  elements  of  this  atrocious  party,  always  rife 
among  the  refuse  of  worn-out  or  diseased  states  of  society, 
were  first  the  populace — the  scum  of  the  people,  tainted 
and  corrupted  by  all  the  vices  of  the  time,  and  ever  float 
ing  to  the  surface  in  large  cities,  when  they  are  fanned  by 
the  wind  of  sedition.  Then  there  were  the  freedmen,  the 
day-laborers,  and  the  slaves,  placed  by  the  jealousy  of  the 
laws  out  of  the  pale  of  civic  rights,  and  always  ready  to 
break  the  frame-work  of  those  laws  which  would  not  bend 
so  as  to  admit  them  to  their  proper  places  :  there  was  also 
that  multitude  of  soldiers  disbanded  by  Sylla,  by  Marius, 
and  by  Pompey  himself,  to  whom  lands  had  been  allotted 
in  certain  parts  of  Italy,  but  who,  soon  getting  tired  of  their 
mediocrity  and  ease  in  these  military  colonies,  or  having 
soon  exhausted  their  wealth  in  the  prodigality  natural  to 
those  who  become  suddenly  rich,  endeavored  to  win  more 


354  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

wealth  by  joining  with  their  arms  in  the  seditions  of  the 
country.  Lastly,  there  was  a  small  number  of  young  men 
belonging  to  the  first  houses  in  Rome  —  such  as  Clodius, 
Caesar,  Catiline,  Crassus,  and  Cethegus — who,  retaining  the 
rank,  after  losing  the  virtues  of  their  ancestors  ;  of  corrupt 
morals,  soiled  by  debauchery,  ruined  by  prodigality  ;  ob 
jects  of  public  scandal,  careless  of  opinion,  greedy  of  mon 
ey  ;  betraying  their  noble  blood,  their  caste,  their  tradi 
tions,  and  the  honor  of  their  races,  became  the  flatterers, 
the  instigators,  the  tribunes,  the  accomplices  (open  or  se 
cret)  of  the  populace,  and  sought  their  lost  wealth  and 
future  greatness  in  the  ruin  of  their  country. 

Such  were  the  causes  and  the  promoters  of  revolution 
in  Rome  when  Cicero  came  into  power.  The  chief,  rec 
ognized  as  the  leader  for  the  time  being  of  all  these  fac 
tions  leagued  against  the  safety  of  the  Republic,  if  anar 
chy  can  be  said  to  have  a  head,  was  Catiline. 

Catiline  was  a  man  of  noble  birth,  of  manly  bearing,  of 
unblushing  audacity  (which  the  populace  often  mistakes 
for  greatness  of  mind),  of  great  military  skill  —  the  only 
good  quality  which  can  not  be  denied  him  ;  possessing  that 
depraved  species  of  eloquence  which  knows  how  to  rouse 
the  worst  passions  from  the  foulest  recesses  of  the  human 
heart ;  and  suspected,  if  not  convicted,  of  fratricide,  of  rob 
bery  and  murder  on  the  Appian  Way ;  of  secret  poisoning, 
of  debauchery  amounting  to  crime  ;  but  vain  of  his  birth, 
and  confident  of  his  popularity ;  ready  enough  for  venge 
ance,  and  being  himself  a  senator,  sufficiently  strength 
ened  by  secret  connections  with  Caesar,  Clodius,  Crassus, 
and  other  senators,  for  his  doubtful  reputation  to  be  cov 
ered  by  a  certain  sort  of  character,  so  that  no  one  dared 
openly  charge  him  with  the  iniquities  of  which  he  was 
secretly  accused.  Catiline  was  already  a  prsstor  :  his  am 
bition  aspired  to  the  consulate.  As  soon  as  he  was  foiled 
in  his  design  by  the  triumph  of  the  great  orator,  he  under 
took  to  upset  what  he  could  not  win  ;  to  murder  the  con 
sul  ;  to  proscribe  part  of  the  senate ;  to  assemble  the  dis- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  355 

banded  soldiery,  the  laborers,  and  the  slaves  ;  to  attack 
Rome,  and  to  seek,  in  the  general  confusion,  an  opportu 
nity  of  revenge,  and  a  tyranny  of  crime  for  himself  and 
his  accomplices.  If  Caesar  was  not  a  participator,  he  was 
at  least  a  silent,  and  perhaps  approving  spectator  arid  con 
fidant  of  this  conspiracy. 

With  the  general  impression  of  so  extensive  a  plot,  of 
which  the  chiefs  alone  were  concealed,  but  of  which  the 
existence  was  every  where  avowed  by  the  members,  Cic 
ero  assembled  the  se'nate,  and  called  on  Catiline  to  avow 
or  deny  the  crime.  "My  crime!"  insolently  replied  the 
incendiary.  "  Is  it  then  a  crime  to  give  a  leader  to  the 
headless  power  of  the  people,  when  the  senate,  which  is 
the  head  of  the  government,  has  no  longer  any  life,  and 
can  do  nothing  for  the  country  ?"  With  these  words  Cat 
iline  went  out,  and  the  senate,  frightened  at  such  audacity, 
gave  the  temporary  dictatorship  to  Cicero,  to  save  Rome. 

Catiline  did  not  sleep  after  so  bold  a  declaration  of  war 
against  his  country.  He  sent  Manlius,  one  of  his  accom 
plices,  who  commanded  a  body  of  veterans  in  Tuscany,  the 
order  to  collect  his  troops  and  march  upon  Rome.  Each 
quarter  of  the  city  was  placed  in  charge  of  one  of  the  con 
spirators,  who  at  a  concerted  hour  was  to  raise  the  people 
and  direct  their  movements.  The  arms  and  torches  were 
got  ready,  the  buildings  were  marked,  and  the  victims 
pointed  out  for  destruction.  Cicero  was  the  first.  It  was 
in  the  blood  of  her  greatest  citizen  that  the  murderers  in 
tended  to  quench  the  ancient  laws  of  Rome.  A  noble 
lady — the  mistress  of  one  of  the  young  patricians  involved 
in  the  conspiracy — went  by  night  to  warn  Cicero  to  keep 
his  door  shut  next  morning  against  the  assassins.  They 
actually  presented  themselves  in  arms  at  daybreak  at  the 
gate  of  the  consul,  whose  head  they  had  promised  to  take  ; 
but  they  found  it  guarded  by  a  band  of  faithful  citizens. 
While  Cicero  lived  the  city  had  a  centre,  the  laws  an  ex 
ecutive  officer,  the  country  a  voice,  the  senate  a  guide. 
The  execution  of  the  plot  was  deferred  ;  but  Cicero  did  not 


356  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

delay  his  precautions.  He  convoked  the  senate  at  break 
of  day  in  the  fortified  temple  of  Jupiter  Stator,  the  guard 
ian  of  Rome.  Catiline  was  bold  enough  to  be  present, 
convinced  either  that  the  absence  of  proof  against  him 
would  afford  a  presumption  of  his  innocence,  or  that  his 
audacity  would  intimidate  the  consul.  When  Catiline 
entered, the  temple,  all  the  senators  kept  aloof  from  him, 
as  if  to  preserve  themselves  from  the  contagion,  or  perhaps 
even  the  suspicion  of  crime.  Respect  for  the  law  made  a 
clear  space  round  the  conspirator.  Cicero,  indignant,  but 
not  intimidated,  arose  and  addressed  to  the  public  enemy 
that  tremendous  apostrophe,  which  has  fixed  on  the  name 
of  Catiline  a  mark  such  as  the  lightning  of  heaven  leaves 
on  the  thunder-stricken  monument.  In  reading  it,  our 
thoughts  rush  fitfully  over  its  brief  periods,  as  if  the  ora 
tor  were  breathless  with  impatience  and  indignation.  We 
transcribe  a  portion,  by  which  we  may  judge  both  the 
speaker  and  the  criminal. 

"  How  long,  0  Catiline,  will  you  continue  to  abuse 
our  patience  ?  how  long  will  your  madness  defy  our  laws  ? 
At  what  point  will  your  audacity  stop  ?  What-!  neither 
the  guard  which  watches  on  the  Palatine  by  night,  nor  the 
troops  occupying  the  city,  nor  this  assembly  of  all  well- 
disposed  citizens,  nor  the  indignant  looks  of  the  senate — 
can  nothing  shake  you  ?  See  you  not  that  your  project  is 
discovered  ?  that  your  conspiracy  is  surrounded  by  wit 
nesses,  and  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  ?  Do  you  think  that 
any  one  of  us  can  be  ignorant  of  what  you  did  last  night 
and  the  night  before  ?  to  whose  house  you  went,  what  ac 
complices  you  collected,  what  resolutions  you  adopted  ? 
What  times,  what  manners  are  these  ?  All  these  plots 
the  senate  knows,  the  consul  sees,  and  yet  Catiline  lives! 
Lives  !  do  I  say  ?  He  enters  the  senate ;  he  is  admitted 
to  the  council  of  the  Republic  ;  he  chooses  among  us,  and 
marks  out  with  his  eye  those  whom  he  designs  to  murder. 
And  we,  men  of  courage,  think  we  do  enough  for  the  coun 
try  if  we  avoid  his  fury  and  his  poniard  !  Long  ago,  0 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  357 

Catiline,  should  the  consul  have  put  you  to  death,  and  be 
headed  you  with  the  sword  you  intended  for  us  !  The 
first  of  the  Gracchi  attempted  dangerous  innovations 
against  established  order  ;  an  illustrious  citizen — the  high 
pontiff  Publius  Scipio,  who,  however,  was  not  a  magistrate 

punished  him  with  death.     And  when  Catiline  prepares 

to  make  the  whole  universe  a  scene  of  blood  and  carnage, 
shall  not  the  consuls  punish  him  ?  I  will  not  remind  you 
how  Servilius  Ahala,  to  save  the  Republic  from  the  changes 
meditated  by  Spurius  Mselius,  killed  him  with  his  own 
hand  :  such  examples  are  too  ancient.  The  time  is  now 
passed — ves?  it  is  passed — when  great  men  thought  it  an 
honor  to  treat  a  pernicious  citizen  with  more  severity  than 
the  most  determined  enemy.  This  day,  Catiline,  a  decree 
of  the  senate  arms  us  with  a  terrible  power  against  you. 
Neither  the  wisdom  of  the  senate,  nor  the  authority  of  this 
order,  fails  the  Republic  ;  we  alone  —  I  avow  it  —  we 

alone,  consuls  without  virtue,  fail  in  our  duty  ! 

Remember  the  night  before  last,  and  you  will  see  that  I 
watch  more  vigilantly  for  the  safety  of  the  Republic  than 
you  for  its  destruction.  I  tell  you  that  on  that  night  you 
went  (I  speak  without  disguise)  to  the  house  of  the  Senator 
Lgeca,  where  the  accomplices  of  your  wicked  plot  assem 
bled  in  great  numbers.  Dare  you  deny  this  ?  You  are 
silent !  I  will  prove  it,  if  you  deny  it ;  for  I  see  here,  in 
the  senate,  men  who  were  with  you.  Immortal  gods  ! 
where  are  we  ?  What  a  government  is  this  of  ours  ! 
Here,  conscript  fathers,  even  here,  amid  the  members  of 
this  assembly — in  the  august  council  that  weighs  the  des 
tiny  of  the  universe — traitors  compass  my  destruction, 
yours,  the  ruin  of  Rome,  and  of  the  entire  earth.  And 
the  consul  sees  these  traitors,  and  takes  their  opinion 
touching  great  interests  of  the  state  !  Although  their  blood 
ought  to  flow,  he  does  not  address  to  them  an  offensive 
word.  Yes,  Catiline,  you  were  at  Lseca's  house  the  night 
before  last ;  you  divided  Italy  among  your  accomplices ; 
you  assigned  the  places  to  which  they  were  to  proceed  ; 


358  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

you  selected  those  who  were  to  remain,  in  Rome,  and 
those  whom  you  should  take  with  you  ;  you  named  the 
parts  of  the  city  that  each  was  to  set  on  fire  ;  you  declared 
that  the  time  for  your  departure  had  arrived,  but  that  if 
you  delayed  it  yet  a  little  while,  it  was  only  because  I 
lived.  Then  came  forward  two  Roman,  knights,  who,  to 
relieve  ,you  from  that  anxiety,  promised  to  go  to  my  house 
that  very  night,  shortly  before  daybreak,  and  murder  rne 
in  my  bed.  You  had  hardly  separated  before  I  knew  all. 
I  surrounded  myself  with  a  stronger  and  more  numerous 
guard.  I  shut  my  door  against  those  who,  under  pretense 
of  paying  their  duty  to  me,  came  from  you  to  take  my  life. 
I  had  named  them  beforehand  to  some  of  our  principal 
citizens,  and  I  had  announced  the  hour  at  which  they  were 

to  arrive Can  you,  Catiline,  share  in  peace  the 

light  that  shines  upon  us,  or  enjoy  the  air  we  breathe, 
when  you  know  that  there  is  no  one  here  but  is  aware 
that  on  the  eve  of  the  Calends  of  January,  the  last  day  of 
the  consulship  of  Lepidus  and  Tullius,  you  presented  your 
self  in  the  comitium  armed  with  a  dagger  ?  that  you  had 
hired  a  troop  of  assassins  to  kill  the  consuls  and  the  prin 
cipal  citizens  ?  that  it  was  neither  repentance  nor  fear, 
but  the  good  genius  of  the  Roman  people,  which  arrested 
your  arm  and  checked  your  fury  ?  I  do  not  dwell  upon 
your  early  crimes.  They  are  well  known  to  every  one  ; 
and  many  more  have  followed  them.  How  many  times, 
both  since  my  election  and  since  I  have  been  consul,  have 
you  not  attempted  my  life  ?  How  many  times  have  I  not 
required  all  the  artifices  of  defense  to  parry  the  blows 
which  your  skill  seemed  to  render  inevitable  ?  There  is 
not  one  of  your  designs,  not  one  of  your  successes,  not  one 
of  your  intrigues,  with  which  I  am  not  exactly  acquainted. 
And  yet  nothing  can  exhaust  your  determination  or  dis 
courage  your  efforts.  How  repeatedly  has  the  dagger  with 
which  you  threaten  us  been  snatched  from  your  hands  ? 
How  often  has  unforeseen  accident  prevented  its  use  ? 
And  yet  your  arm  must  raise  it  again. !  Tell  us,  then,  on 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  359 

what  dreadful  ultar  have  you  consecrated  your  weapon  ? 
what  sacrilegious  vow  obliges  you  to  bury  it  in  the  bosom 
of  a  consul ? 

"  To  what  a  life,  Catiline,  are  you  now  condemned  !  for 
I  will  speak  to  you,  no  longer  with  the  indignation  which 
you  merit,  but  with  the  pity  that  you  deserve  so  little. 
You  have  just  entered  the  senate.  In  such  a  numerous 
assembly,  in  which  you  have  so  many  relations  and  con 
nections,  who  is  there  that  has  condescended  to  salute  you  1 
If  no  person  before  you  ever  endured  such  an  insult,  why 
wait  for  the  voice  of  the  senate  to  pronounce  the  disgrace 
ful  sentence  so  strongly  expressed  by  its  silence  ?  Did 
you  not  notice,  when  you  came  in,  that  all  the  seats  near 
you  remained  empty  ?  Did  you  not  see  that  all  the  con 
sular  senators,  whose  death  you  have  so  often  compassed, 
rose  from  their  places  when  you  sat  down,  and  left  that 
side  of  the  house  bare  ?  How  can  you  suffer  such  a  hu 
miliation  ?  I  swear,  that  if  my  slaves  dreaded  me  as  all 
the  citizens  dread  you,  I  should  think  myself  obliged  to 
quit  my  house  ;  and  yet  you  do  not  think  proper  to  leave 
the  city !  If  my  fellow-citizens,  unjustly  prejudiced  against 
me,  hated  me  as  they  hate  you,  I  would  rather  be  removed 
from  their  sight  than  encounter  their  angry  looks  ;  and 
you,  when  a  guilty  conscience  warns  you  that  for  a  long 
time  they  have  only  looked  upon  you  with  horror,  you 
hesitate  to  avoid  those  to  whom  your  very  presence  is  tor 
ture  !  If  your  own  parents  trembled  before  you,  if  they 
hated  you  with  unquenchable  hatred,  doubtless  you  would 
not  hesitate  to  depart  out  of  their  sight.  The  country,  our 
common  mother,  hates  you  ;  it  fears  you  ;  it  has  long  since 
condemned  the  parricidal  designs  with  which  you  are 
wholly  occupied.  What !  will  you  despise  its  sacred  au 
thority  ?  will  you  rebel  against  its  judgment  ?  will  you 
defy  its  power  ?  Methinks  I  hear  it  now  address  you. 
'  Catiline,'  it  seems  to  say,  « for  some  years  no  crime  has 
been  committed  of  which  you  are  not  the  instigator,  no 
wickedness  in  which  you  have  not  shared.  You  alone 


360  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

have  assumed  the  privilege  of  assassinating  citizens  with 
impunity,  of  tyrannizing  over  and  plundering  our  allies. 
Against  you  the  laws  are  dumh  and  the  tribunals  power 
less  ;  or,  rather,  you  have  upset  and  annihilated  them. 
Such  outrages  deserve  all  my  anger  ;  I  have  borne  them 
in  silence.  But  to  be  condemned  to  perpetual  alarm  on 
account  of  you  alone  ;  to  see  my  repose  never  disturbed 
except  by  Catiline  ;  to  fear  no  plot  that  is  not  connected 
with  your  detestable  conspiracy — this  is  a  fate  to  which  I 
can  not  submit.  Leave  me,  then,  and  deliver  me  from 
the  fear  which  overpowers  me  ;  if  my  apprehensions  be 
well  founded,  that  I  may  not  peri-h  ;  if  groundless,  that  I 
may  cease  to  fear.'  " 

Human  eloquence  seldom  soared  higher  than  in  this 
personal  contest  between  Cicero  and  the  accomplices  of 
Catiline.  As  to  the  conspiracy  itself,  it  doubtless  pre 
sented  more  surface  than  depth,  and  more  opportunity 
for  the  consul's  oratory  than  real  danger  to  call  forth  his 
heroism.  Catiline  was  one  of  those  adventurers  whom  a 
perverse  policy  sometimes  encourages  in  their  secret  en 
deavors,  as  has  been  exemplified  in  modern  revolutions, 
but  whom  every  body  execrates  and  disavows  when  they 
exhibit  themselves,  because  they  are  disreputable  even  in 
crime.  No  one  in  Rome  dared  to  defend  Catiline.  The 
country  was  saved  rather  from  a  bugbear  than  from  a 
tyrant  by  Cicero.  He  showed,  some  days  later,  a  firmer 
resolution ;  but  it  was  firmness  against  the  vanquished. 
Several  of  Catiline's  accomplices,  who  had  been  left  be 
hind  in  Rome  after  his  departure,  and  proved  to  have 
held  correspondence  with  him,  were  seized  and  imprison 
ed  by  the  consul.  To  put  them  to  death  without  trial, 
and  in  spite  of  the  laws  protecting  the  lives  of  the  citi 
zens,  was  to  assume  a  terrible  responsibility  ;  to  set  them 
free  would  have  been  to  proclaim  the  impunity  of  conspir 
ators.  Cicero  laid  the  case  before  the  senate;  Caesar  de 
fended  them  disdainfully,  and  gave  them  the  protection 
of  contempt,  yet  with  all  the  dexterity  of  an  accomplice. 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  361 

The  senate  hesitated ;  Cicero,  resolute  and  indignant, 
again  aroused  the  sleeping  anger  of  the  senators,  and  de 
manded  their  death,  which  was  granted  on  account  of  the 
public  danger.  On  leaving  the  senate,  he  ordered,  on  his 
own  authority,  the  execution  of  Lentulus,  Cethegus,  and 
all  the  suspected  leaders  of  Catiline's  party  ;  then  walk 
ing  boldly  out  of  the  prison  in  which  they  had  just  fallen 
under  the  axes  of  his  lictors,  and  passing  by  the  groups 
of  their  partisans,  waiting  to  know  their  fate,  "  They  have 
ceased  to  live  !"  he  cried,  with  a  look  of  defiance  ;  and 
proceeded  to  give  thanks  to  the  gods  for  the  safety  of 
Rome. 

The  faction  of  Catiline,  so  diminished  that  he  could  only 
take  with  him  from  Rome  three  hundred  miscreants  who 
had  lost  their  credit  and  reputation,  was  crushed  in  one 
day  at  Florence,  as  it  had  been  in  one  night  at  Rome. 

The  consulate  of  Cicero  concluded  with  the  terror  of  the 
factions  and  the  gratitude  of  the  good  citizens.  Csesar 
and  his  then  rising  party,  more  formidable  than  that  of 
Catiline,  alone  opposed  Cicero's  giving  an  account  to  the 
people  of  the  measures  which  he  had  taken  and  the  blood 
he  had  spilled.  "Well!"  said  Cicero,  on  mounting  the 
tribune,  when  CaBsar,  as  prsstor,  refused  to  allow  him  to 
speak,  "  I  will  not  harangue  the  people,  but  I  will  take  an 
oath."  The  people  waited  in  astonishment  for  the  con 
sul's  oath.  "  I  swear,"  said  Cicero,  calling  upon  his  con 
science,  his  country,  and  his  gods,  "  I  swear  that  I  have 
saved  the  Republic  !"  It  was  in  vain  that  Caesar  and  his 
accomplices  protested  by  their  silence  against  the  murder 
of  their  friends.  The  entire  people  applauded  the  testi 
mony  of  the  savior  of  Rome,  and  respectfully  escorted  him 
to  the  door  of  his  house.  Some  days  after,  they  awarded 
him  the  title  of  FATHER  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  The  emper 
ors  afterward  assumed  this  appellation.  Rome,  while 
free,  gave  it  of  her  own  accord,  and  for  the  first  time,  to 
Cicero.  The  cities  of  Italy  set  up  statues  to  him  as  to  a 
god  :  they  called  him  the  second  founder  of  Rome. 

VOL.  I.— a 


362  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

He  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  glory  and  fortune, 
where  envy  awaited  him.  The  Republic  was  in  such  a 
state  that  it  had  no  place  for  so  upright  and  exalted  a 
citizen.  It  could  tolerate  great  talents  and  great  reputa 
tions,  but  only  on  condition  of  their  being  coupled  with 
great  vices.  It  was  the  interest  of  all  parties  to  get  rid 
of  Cicero,  for  they  had  all  some  favor,  either  mean  or 
wicked,  to  solicit  of  him.  When  nations  are  determined 
upon  ruin  or  dishonor,  they  drive  away  the  honest  wit 
nesses  who  would  make  them  blush  at  their  baseness. 

Such  was  .Rome  during  the  few  years  which  preceded 
the  usurpation  of  Caesar  and  the  destruction  of  the  Re 
public. 

Since  Pompey,  so  frequently  a  consul  and  conqueror, 
had  returned  to  Rome,  and  Caesar  had  increased  in  am 
bition,  intrigue,  popularity,  and  renown,  the  city  had  be 
come  divided  into  three  parties,  which  marched  almost 
side  by  side  to  the  ruin  of  liberty. 

The  first  and  most  powerful  was  that  of  Pompey,  the 
idol  of  the  senate,  loved  by  the  soldiers,  the  controller, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  support  of  the  nobility  ;  aspir 
ing,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  command  the  existing  institu 
tions  ;  possessing  ambition  only  in  so  far  as  that  passion 
was  honorable  and  patriotic ;  happy  to  preserve  the  Re 
public,  provided  he  was  its  patron  and  chief  citizen ;  and 
seeking  to  preserve  such  a  balance  between  all  parties  as 
he  could  sway  in  any  direction  by  the  influence  of  his 
character  and  sword.  It  appears  from  the  names  of  the 
men  who  afterward  joined  his  fortunes,  that  all  that  then 
remained  in  Rome  of  liberty  and  virtue  was,  with  Cato 
and  Cicero,  of  this  section. 

The  second  party  was  that  of  the  demagogues,  whose 
ambition  led  them  to  flatter  the  basest  and  most  sangui 
nary  instincts  of  the  multitude,  and  who  never  ceased  to 
animate  the  people  against  the  senate  and  the  patricians. 
They  declared  war  against  all  laws,  and  only  cared  for 
law  as  it  might  facilitate  the  seditions  and  murders  sug- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  363 

gested  by  their  tribunes.  Through  fear  of  their  anarchy 
and  crimes,  they  compelled  the  better  class  of  citizens  to 
have  recourse  to  dictatorships.  The  most  formidable 
leader  of  this  popular  body  was  Clodius. 

Lastly,  there  was  the  party  of  Ceesar,  a  man  gifted  by 
nature  and  fortune  with  all  the  endowments  of  birth, 
rank,  riches,  education,  eloquence,  courage,  and  genius, 
and  who  prostituted  them  all — in  his  youth  to  vice,  in 
after  life  to  glory  and  ambition.  Born  of  the  most  illus 
trious  race  in  Rome,  he  had  early  taken  the  side  of  the 
democratic  party,  as  has  been  mentioned  in  speaking  of 
Catiline,  in  order  to  have  a  second  means  of  raising  him 
self — with  the  senate,  by  his  aristocratic  connection;  with 
the  people,  by  his  popularity.  He  also  wanted,  in  order 
to  cover  the  bad  reputation  of  his  youth,  that  passionate 
favor  of  the  populace,  which  does  not  require  respecta 
bility,  provided  its  caprices  and  irregularities  are  in 
dulged.  He  had,  morever,  already  signalized  himself  in 
arms,  and  especially  in  the  war  against  the  pirates  of  Cili- 
cia.  He  aspired  to  equal  the  exploits  of  Pompey  by  the 
conquest  of  Gaul,  in  order  to  found  his  power  on  some 
great  honor  won  for  the  Roman  people,  to  attach  an  army 
to  his  person,  and  then  to  return  to  Rome,  like  Marius, 
Sylla,  and  Pompey.  Liberty  had  long  since  ceased  to  be 
the  aim  of  any  one,  and  the  mastery  of  the  Republic  was 
the  dream  and  ambition  of  all. 

To  obtain  the  government  of  the  Gauls,  the  present  ob 
ject  of  his  desires,  Caesar,  who  understood  as  well  how  to 
flatter  the  aristocracy  as  to  engage  the  plebeians,  was  at 
this  moment  conciliating  both  Pompey  and  Clodius.  He 
solicited  from  the  one  the  suffrages  of  the  senate  and  the 
legions,  from  the  other  the  votes  of  the  people.  To  grat 
ify  Clodius,  it  was  necessary  to  deliver  up  to  him  Cicero, 
the  father  of  his  country,  who  had  saved  the  Republic  from 
the  demagogues,  whom  Clodius  wished  to  avenge.  The 
instant  was  well  chosen  for  vengeance.  Pompey  and  Cras- 
sus,  who  were  also  powerful  in  the  senate,  were  interested 


364  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

in  removing  Caesar,  whose  intrigues  and  popularity  inter 
fered  with  them  in  Rome.  They  granted  him  the  Gauls, 
in  order  to  keep  him  away  from  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the 
people,  who  began  to  look  and  listen  to  him  with  too  great 
attention.  Pompey,  a  cold  and  negligent,  although  inti 
mate  friend  of  Cicero — a  little  tired,  also,  it  may  be,  of  the 
too  brilliant  reputation  of  the  Savior  of  Rome — sacrificed 
him,  for  the  moment  at  least,  to  Csesar,  who  feared  him  ; 
to  Crassus,  who  hated  him  ;  and  to  Clodius,  who  had  sworn 
his  destruction.  The  great  interest  Pompey  had  in  con 
ciliating  CsBsar  prevailed  over  his  friendship. 

The  hatred  of  Clodius  against  Cicero  had  been  recently 
envenomed  by  one  of  those  accidents  of  private  life  which 
become  the  cause  of  public  disaster.  Clodius,  descended 
from  a  family  as  illustrious  as  that  of  Csesar,  and  as  un 
bridled  in  his  love,  had  been  seized  with  a  violent  passion 
for  Caesar's  youthful  wife,  named  Pompeia.  Whether  this 
young  lady  reciprocated  the  passion,  and  assigned  her  lover 
a  meeting  in  her  house,  or  whether  Clodius,  without  Pom- 
peia's  permission,  intruded  into  Caesar's  residence,  a  slave 
surprised  him  by  night,  disguised  as  a  woman,  in  the  ves 
tibule.  It  was  a  day  of  sacrifice  and  mystery,  that  the 
women  alone  performed,  and  during  which  it  was  not  law 
ful  for  any  man  to  remain  under  the  same  roof.  Caesar, 
without  complaining  of  his  wife,  or  breaking  with  Clodius, 
with  whom  he  wished  to  keep  measures,  divorced  Pom 
peia.  Clodius  had  been  brought  to  trial  for  profaning  the 
sacred  mysteries.  Cicero  gave  evidence  against  Clodius, 
being  persuaded  to  this  course  by  Terentia,  his  wife,  an 
ambitious  and  jealous  woman.  Terentia  hated  Clodius, 
because  Cicero  admired  the  young  and  beautiful  Clodia, 
his  sister.  Terentia  was  afraid  that  her  husband  might 
think  of  divorcing  her  in  order  to  marry  her  rival.  Thus 
in  Rome,  as  formerly  in  Athens,  female  jealousy  was  des 
tined  to  exercise  the  most  important  influence  on  the  Re 
public. 

Clodius,  acquitted,  in  spite  of  Cicero's  efforts,  by  the  im- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  365 

perious  favor  of  the  multitude  and  the  prudent  silence  of 
Caesar,  abjured  his  nobility,  and  got  himself  adopted  by  a 
plebeian,  in  order  that  he  might  be  eligible  for  a  tribune 
of  the  people,  a  magistracy  which  in  Rome  represented 
popular  interests  and  passions,  and  which  often  counter 
balanced  the  consuls  and  the  senate.  So,  in  our  time, 
Mirabeau  renounced  his  rank  that  he  might  be  elected  at 
Marseilles  by  the  people  in  opposition  to  the  aristocracy. 

The  senate,  the  consuls,  Crassus,  Csesar,  and  even  Pom- 
pey — some  from  want  of  power,  some  from  negligence,  and 
others  from  a  wish  to  gratify  him — having  abandoned  all 
power  in  Rome  to  Clodius,  the  agitator  and  flatterer  of  the 
people,  whose  tribune  he  also  was,  this  demagogue  filled 
the  city  with  his  hatred  and  vengeance  against  Cicero. 
He  passed  a  decree  of  the  tribes,  condemning  to  banish 
ment  whoever  might  have  put  to  death  a  Roman  citizen 
unsentenced  by  the  people.  This  was  a  covert  attack 
upon  Cicero,  who  understood  it,  and  vainly  endeavored  to 
raise  in  his  favor  the  indignation  and  energy  of  the  good 
citizens  ;  but  he  only  excited  their  grief  and  pity.  Rome 
was  in  one  of  those  critical  moments  when  each  person, 
thinking  only  of  his  own  safety,  had  neither  leisure  nor 
liberty  to  think  of  the  misfortunes  of  others.  The  military 
ambition  of  Pompey,  Caesar,  arid  Crassus,  joined  to  popular 
anarchy,  gave  up  the  city  to  the  agitation,  turbulence,  and 
crimes  of  Clodius.  It  may  be  that  the  three  chiefs  of  the 
army,  alternately  invested  with,  or  aspiring  to  the  dictator 
ship,  secretly  rejoiced  at  the  license  and  insubordination 
of  a  multitude,  which,  by  proving  the  insufficiency  of  the 
laws  and  the  decay  of  public  spirit,  might  make  the  cit 
izens  feel  more  strongly  the  necessity  of  a  despotic  author 
ity,  and  serve  beforehand  as  an  excuse  for  tyranny. 

However  this  may  be,  they  willfully  closed  their  eyes  to 
the  attacks  of  Clodius  upon  Cicero.  Crassus  and  Csesar 
openly  favored  the  tribune.  Pompey  himself,  who  had 
just  married,  somewhat  late  in  life,  Caesar's  daughter-in- 
law,  and  was  devotedly  attached  to  his  young  wife,  could 


366  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

not  decently,  he  said,  declare  in  favor  of  the  man  whom 
Csesar  condemned.  Pompey  had  retired  to  one  of  his 
country  houses  in  order  to  enjoy  his  love  and  repose  in 
peace,  and  dismissed  from  his  thoughts  all  the  tumults  of 
Rome.  Cicero  visited  him  to  claim  the  assistance  which 
he  might  expect  from  their  old  friendship.  Pompey,  em 
barrassed  by  the  presence  of  an  unfortunate  friend  whose 
very  calamity  was  a  reproach  to  his  ingratitude,  escaped 
by  his  garden  door  as  Cicero  entered  the  vestibule,  and 
gave  orders  to  his  freedmen  to  look  for  him  where  they 
might  be  certain  of  not  finding  him. 

Cicero,  more  shocked  at  Pompey's  weakness  than  at  his 
own  ruin,  returned  to  R-ome,  and  proceeded  from  door  to 
door,  followed  by  an  escort  of  relations,  friends,  and  de 
pendents,  habited  like  himself  in  mourning,  to  excite  by 
these  marks  of  distress  the  compassion  of  the  city  he  had 
saved,  and  to  solicit,  after  the  ancient  fashion,  the  votes  of 
the  citizens  on  his  behalf.  The  people  were  affected  at 
seeing  him  pass,  more  eloquent  in  his  silence  than  when 
he  harangued  them  from  the  rostrum.  Clodius,  fearing 
the  effect  of  popular  compassion,  collected  against  the  sup 
pliant  that  shameless  and  merciless  rabble,  which  looks 
upon  the  degradation  of  talent  and  virtue  as  a  victory  of 
baseness  and  envy,  and  which  rejoices  to  trample  under 
foot  every  thing  that  falls.  Followed  by  this  armed  and 
insolent  mob,  Clodius  met  Cicero  every  where,  attacked  his 
companions,  tore  the  clothes  of  his  followers,  and  filled  the 
streets  with  tumult,  confusion,  and  murder  ;  then,  encour 
aging  his  vile  associates  to  assail  the  great  citizen  himself, 
showered  upon  him  insults,  sarcasms,  mud,  and  stones,  and 
drove  him,  soiled  and  bleeding,  home.  The  consuls,  pow 
erless,  advised  him,  instead  of  attempting  defense,  to  yield 
to  the  times,  and  to  allow  the  storm  to  blow  over  by  de 
parting  from  a  country  in  which  his  enemy  reigned.  The 
senate,  whose  cause  was  identified  with  Cicero,  assembled 
in  vain  to  protect  him.  The  senators — abandoned  to  them 
selves  by  Pompey,  Crassus,  and  Csesar,  and  besieged  in  the 


MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO.  3o? 

senate  by  the  adherents  of  Clodius — tore  their  gowns  with 
indignation,  and  bore  witness,  as  they  dispersed,  to  the 
impotence  of  the  law,  the  cowardice  of  the  generals,  the 
oppression  of  the  citizens,  and  the  ruin  of  the  Republic. 

Cicero  at  length  yielded  to  his  fate,  and  fell  with  the 
country.  Fully  expecting,  after  his  departure,  that  his 
houses  would  be  pillaged  or  burned,  he  endeavored  to 
preserve  at  least  what  he  most  valued  ;  and  taking  from 
among  his  domestic  divinities  a  small  ivory  statue  of  Mi 
nerva — the  guardian  and  protectress  of  Rome,  a  symbol 
of  the  divine  wisdom  which  inspires  and  preserves  em 
pires — he  took  it  to  the  Capitol,  the  temple,  citadel,  and 
palace  of  Rome,  and  consecrated  it  there,  to  render  it  in 
violable  to  the  spoilers.  Then,  followed  by  a  few  friends 
and  servants  well  armed,  to  protect  him  from  assassina 
tion,  he  quitted  Rome  by  night,  and  set  out  by  unfre 
quented  paths  for  the  Sicilian  Sea. 

Scarcely  was  Clodius  aware  of  his  departure,  when, 
finding  it  all  the  easier  to  obtain  from  the  people  an  emp 
ty  sentence  of  banishment  against  a  man  who  was  going 
of  his  own  accord  into  exile,  he  passed  a  decree  banish 
ing  Cicero  for  life  to  a  distance  of  500  miles  from  the  city, 
and  ordering,  upon  pain  of  death,  all  the  citizens  to  refuse 
fire  and  water  to  him  whom  public  gratitude  had  pro 
claimed  the  SECOND  FOUNDER  OF  ROME. 

There  happened  to  Cicero  in  his  flight  what  happens 
to  all  men  fallen  into  disgrace  with  Fortune,  and  into  en 
mity  with  the  people.  Those  who  knew  him  only  by  re 
port,  and  who  owed  him  nothing,  received  him  with  a 
generous  hospitality,  and  were  proud  to  offer  the  shelter 
of  their  roof  to  great  misfortune  pursued  by  great  injus 
tice.  Those  whom  he  had  raised  to  honor  and  helped  to 
wealth  during  his  consulship,  turned  away  from  him,  for 
fear  of  being  contaminated  by  his  touch  in  the  eyes  of 
those  in  power,  or  else  hastened  to  accuse  and  insult  him, 
for  fear  of  being  thought  grateful.  The  prsetor  of  Sicily, 
who  owed  him  every  thing,  requested  him  not  to  seek  ref- 


368  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

uge  in  his  province  ;  and  another  whom  he  had  protected, 
and  whom  he  asked  for  the  shelter  of  his  house,  when  he 
arrived  at  a  little  town  on  the  sea-coast,  and  was  waiting 
for  a  vessel,  shut  his  door  against  him,  and  offered  him, 
as  a  great  favor,  a  disgraceful  refuge  in  his  cow-house. 
Cicero  indignantly  quitted  this  inhospitable  place,  in 
which  his  footsteps  were  tracked  by  disasters,  and  went 
to  Brundusium,  where  he  embarked  alone  and  in  poverty 
for  Greece — the  country  of  his  thoughts.  While  his  eyes, 
wet  with  tears,  were  still  fixed  on  the  receding  shores  of 
Italy,  which  he  had  filled  with  his  name,  Clodius,  arming 
the  populace  with  torches,  burned  his  house  in  Rome, 
razed  it  to  the  foundations,  and  built  a  temple  of  anarchy 
in  its  place.  Then,  sending  his  emissaries  into  all  the 
provinces  where  Gicero  possessed  country  mansions  or 
gardens,  he  had  his  dwelling-houses,  his  books,  and  his 
woods  put  up  to  auction,  to  deprive  him  even  of  the 
marks  of  his  footsteps,  the  pleasures  of  study,  the  shade 
of  his  trees,  and  even  to  rob  him  of  all  that  could  remind 
him  of  happiness  in  what  had  once  been  his  country. 

But  the  respect  for  Cicero,  and  the  unwillingness  to 
seize  the  spoil  of  him  to  whom  every  Roman  owed  the 
security  of  his  own  hearth,  were  such,  says  Plutarch,  that 
no  one  presented  himself  as  a  purchaser.  His  correspond 
ence,  which  fortunately  has  been  preserved  entire,  will 
now  give  us  an  insight  into  the  very  heart  of  a  great  man 
— the  misery  of  the  exile — the  affection  of  the  father — the 
weakness  of  the  husband — the  resignation  of  the  philoso 
pher — and  the  distresses  of  the  citizen. 

On  reaching  Greece  after  his  proscription,  Cicero  pro 
posed  to  stop  at  his  favorite  Athens,  which  the  example 
and  letters  of  Atticus  had  taught  him  to  love  so  well. 
But  the  shadow  of  their  former  life  follows  public  men 
even  into  foreign  countries  :  the  sea,  which  divides  them 
from  their  native  land,  does  not  separate  them  from  their 
name.  That  of  Cicero  preceded  and  denounced  him  ev- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  359 

cry  where.  He  learned  that  the  remains  of  Catiline's  par 
ty,  and  the  accomplices  of  Clodius,  awaited  him  in  Ath 
ens,  to  reckon  with  him,  knife  in  hand,  for  the  lives  of 
Catiline,  Lentulus,  and  Cethegus.  He  prudently  avoided 
the  track  of  blood  which  seemed  to  precede  as  well  as  fol 
low  him,  and  he  took  refuge  at  Thessalonica,  a  Roman 
Colony  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountains  of  Macedon. 

On  the  road  he  writes  to  his  friend  Atticus,  expressing 
his  regret  that  he  did  not  anticipate  his  excessive  misfor 
tunes  by  an  early  death. 

"  In  urging  me  to  live,  you  can  only  effect  one  object — 
that  I  shall  refrain  from  laying  hands  upon  myself.  The 
other  you  can  not  prevent — my  feeling  regret  at  my  de 
cision  and  at  mv  life.  For  what  is  there  to  attach  me  to 
existence,  now  that  even  that  hope  which  accompanied 
me  at  my  leaving  Borne  has  departed  ?  I  will  not  enum 
erate  all  the  miseries  into  which  I  have  fallen  through  the 
excessive  malice  and  wickedness,  not  so  much  of  my  ene 
mies  as  of  those  who  envy  me  [a  bitter  allusion  to  Caesar, 
Pompey,  and  Crassus],  lest  I  should  both  excite  my  own 
grief  and  reflect  it  upon  you.  This  I  affirm,  that  never 
was  any  one  afflicted  with  so  great  a  calamity,  nor  to  any 

one  was  death  ever  more  desirable What  remains 

of  life  will  serve,  not  to  heal,  but  to  put  an  end  to  my 
grief.  ....  Now,  with  regard  to  what  you  so  often  and 
vehemently  urge,  that  I  give  way  to  weakness,  is  there 
any  evil  so  great,  I  would  ask  you,  as  not  to  be  included 
in  my  calamity  ?  Did  ever  any  one  fall  from  such  a  glo 
rious  position,  in  so  good  a  cause,  with  such  endowments 
of  mind,  judgment,  and  popularity,  and  so  much  support 
from  all  good  citizens  ?  Can  I  forget  who  I  was,  or  not 
feel  what  I  am  ?  the  honor,  the  glory,  the  children,  the 
position  I  have  lost  ?  and  the  brother  whom,  although  I 
love,  and  have  always  loved  him,  more  than  myself  (to 
acquaint  you  with  a  new  species  of  misfortune),  I  avoided 
seeing,  lest  I  should  either  behold  his  grief  and  misery,  or 

a  2 


370  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

offer  myself — whom  he  had  left  most  happy — ruined  and 
afflicted,  to  his  sight  ?  I  omit  other  still  more  intolerable 

griefs.      Indeed,  my  tears  prevent  my  writing I 

know,  and  that  is  the  bitterest  of  my  reflections,  that  it  is 

by  my  own  fault  that  I  suffer You  speak  in  your 

last  letter  of  the  account  the  freedman  of  Crassus  gave  you 

of  my  distress  and  worn  looks Succeeding  days  d€ 

not  relieve,  but  increase  this  affliction.  Other  calamities 
are  mitigated  by  time  ;  this  can  not  but  be  daily  increased 
by  the  sense  of  present  misery  and  the  remembrance  of 

the  happy  past If  there  had  been  either  yourself,  or 

any  one,  when  I  was  struck  down  by  the  cold-hearted 
message  of  Pompey,  to  have  recalled  me  from  my  shame 
ful  decision — and  you  alone  could  best  have  done  it — 1 
should  either  have  fallen  with  honor,  or  I  should  now  be 
enjoying  my  victory.  Pardon  me  this  ;  for  I  reproach 
myself  more  than  you,  and  you  only  as  a  part  of  myself, 

and  a  companion  of  my  fault 

"  ....  I  would  not  go  to  Asia,  for  my  celebrity  has  be 
come  hateful  to  me  ;  and,  if  any  thing  ever  should  be  done 
by  our  new  magistrates,  I  would  not  be  too  far  away.  I 
have  therefore  concluded  to  go  to  your  house  in  Epirus, 
not  that  I  care  for  the  beauty  of  the  place,  as  one  who  al 
together  avoids  the  light,  but  because  I  would  most  will 
ingly  set  out  on  the  road  to  happiness  from  the  resting- 
point  which  you  offer  me  ;  and  if  that  road  be  cut  off,  no 
where  better  can  I  sustain,  or,  which  is  preferable,  get  rid 

of,  this  miserable  existence But  I  must  not  disobey 

the  request  of  my  affectionate  and  afflicted  Tullia 

Epirus  will  affor4  me  either  the  means  of  welfare,  or — 
what  I  have  already  written.  I  pray  and  beseech  you, 
Pomponius,  if  ever  you  have  seen  me  despoiled  by  the  per 
fidy  of  men  of  all  that  was  nearest,  best,  and  dearest  to 
me,  and  betrayed  and  rejected  by  trusted  friends — if  you 
have  seen  me  driven  to  the  ruin  of  myself  and  all  about 
me,  assist  me  with  your  kindness,  and  support  my  brother 
duintus,  who  may  yet  be  saved.  Take  care  of  Terentia 
and  my  children !...." 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  371 

But  at  the  moment  when  Cicero  was  preparing  for  death, 
to  avenge  on  himself  the  crime  of  his  enemies,  the  cow 
ardice  of  his  friends,  and  his  own  misfortune,  the  excess 
of  democratic  tyranny  recalled  to  the  thoughts  of  the  Ro 
mans  the  man  who  had  already  saved  them  by  his  elo 
quence  and  courage  from  the  necessity  of  dictatorships  or 
the  disgrace  of  anarchy.  Clodius,  without  a  counterpoise, 
obliged  to  exceed  each  day  the  excesses  and  madness  of 
the  day  before,  in  order  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the  pop 
ulace,  which  can  only  be  pleased  by  submission  to  its  ca 
prices,  began  to  exhaust  even  license  itself,  and  to  make 
Pompey  anxious  not  only  for  his  power,  but  for  his  life. 
It  even  threatened  Caesar  at  the  head  of  his  army  in  the 
heart  of  Gaul.  Csesar,  Pompey,  the  senate,  the  oppressed 
patricians,  the  virtuous  portion  of  the  plebeians,  silently 
leagued  together  to  incite  the  people  to  the  detestation  of 
Clodius,  and  to  procure  the  recall  of  Cicero,  the  only  man 
whose  eloquence  in  the  rostrum  could  balance  the  per 
verse  popularity  of  the  demagogue. 

A  tribune  of  the  people,  named  Fabricius,  a  brave  man 
and  a  client  of  Cicero,  ventured  from  the  rostrum  to  pro 
pose  his  recall  to  the  people.  Clodius,  who  expected  an 
attempt  of  this  kind  to  be  made  by  Cicero's  friends,  and 
had  filled  the  forum  with  his  partisans,  gladiators  and  as 
sassins,  fearing  the  esteem  and  attachment  of  the  people 
for  the  great  exile,  gave  the  signal  of  murder  to  his  gang, 
hurled  Fabricius  from  the  rostrum,  dispersed  the  party  of 
Cicero's  friends,  and  filled  the  public  square  with  dead 
bodies.  Cicero's  brother,  wounded  by  these  gladiators, 
only  escaped  death  by  hiding  himself .  among  the  slain 
heaped  on  the  steps  of  the  rostrum.  Sextus,  another  of 
the  tribunes,  was  murdered  while  resisting  the  fury  of  his 
colleague.  Clodius,  the  conqueror,  or  rather  the  terror,  of 
Rome,  went  and  set  fire  with  his  own  hand  to  the  temple 
of  the  Nymphs,  where  the  public  records  were  deposited, 
that  he  might  destroy  even  the  very  machinery  of  govern 
ment.  By  the  light  of  the  burning  temple  he  went  to  at- 


372  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

tack  the  houses  of  the  tribune  Milo  and  the  praetor  Csecil- 
ius.  Milo,  with  the  help  of  his  friends,  repelled  the  asso 
ciates  of  the  demagogue,  and,  convinced  that  no  justice 
was  to  be  expected  in  Rome,  except  such  as  a  man  could 
of  himself  command,  enrolled  a  troop  of  gladiators  to  op 
pose  the  ruffians  of  Clodius.  The  senate,  at  length,  shel 
tered  by  this  handful  of  Milo's  supporters,  and  encouraged 
to  bold  measures  by  the  indignation  of  the  people,  who 
were  beginning  to  blush  at  their  own  excesses,  passed  a 
decree  for  Cicero's  recall.  The  same  decree  ordered  his 
houses  to  be  rebuilt  at  the  expense  of  the  treasury,  and 
summoned  to  Rome  all  the  citizens  who  were  interested 
in  the  cause  of  justice  and  virtue,  to  support  the  return  of 
the  exile  against  the  turbulent  crew  of  Clodius.  Pompey 
himself,  then  at  Capua,  presided  over  the  immense  levies 
of  the  citizens  of  Campania,  who  were  rising,  at  the  call 
of  the  senate,  to  deliver  Rome.  Clodius,  beaten  and  hoot 
ed  in  the  elections  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  the 
people,  fell  back  upon  his  former  popularity  among  hired 
assassins  and  ruffians,  his  usual  escort.  Cicero,  informed 
by  his  friends  of  this  revival  of  sentiments  of  justice,  landed 
at  Brundusium,  a  port  of  Magna  Grsecia,  whence  he  had 
embarked  some  months  before,  an  exile.  His  daughter 
Tullia,  to  him  the  dearest  and  most  beautiful  object  in  his 
country,  awaited  him  on  the  shore. 

"  And  it  happened,"  as  he  himself  writes  to  his  friend 
Atticus  on  arriving  at  Brundusium,  "  that  it  was  my  daugh 
ter's  birth-day,  and  also  the  day  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Brundusian  colony,  and  of  the  dedication  of  the  temple  of 

safety  near  your  house I  received  letters  from 

duintus,  my  brother,  acquainting  me  that,  owing  to  the 
great  fervor  that  pervaded  all  ages  and  parties,  and  the 
singular  unanimity  of  all  Italy,  the  law  of  my  recall  had 
passed  the  comitium  of  the  people.  Then,  accompanied  by 
the  chief  inhabitants  of  Brundusium,  I  set  out  on  my  jour 
ney,  and  was  met  by  congratulatory  deputations  from  all 
quarters,  and  arrived  at  Rome  in  such  manner  that  there 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  373 

was  no  person  of  any  note  who  did  not  come  out  to  meet 
me,  except  those  enemies  for  whom  it  was  out  of  the  ques 
tion  to  deny  or  conceal  their  hatred.  When  I  reached  the 
Capuan  gate,  the  steps  of  the  temple  were  covered  by  a 
crowd  of  the  common  people,  who  received  me  with  shouts 
of  congratulation  and  applause ;  and  an  equal  assembly 
accompanied  me  to  the  Capitol.  In  the  forum,  too,  and  in 
the  Capitol  itself,  the  multitude  was  immense." 

The  senate,  the  Roman  knights,  and  the  citizens,  went 
beyond  the  walls  to  meet  him,  and  escorted  him  to  his 
brother's  house,  as  they  could  not  rebuild  in  a  day  the 
mansion  which  Clodius  had  burned — a  spontaneous  tri 
umph,  above  all  other  triumphs,  since  it  had  been  given 
him  from  the  very  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and  which 
made  him  remark,  himself, "  that  he  might  be  suspected 
of  having  wished  for  exile  in  order  to  secure  such  a  re 
turn." 

But  scarcely  had  he  passed  one  night  beneath  the  roof 
of  his  ancestors  before  the  unanimity  of  his  triumph  aroused 
the  envy  even  of  those  who  had  escorted  him  ;  and  open 
ing  his  mind  to  his  absent  friend  Atticus,  he  writes :  "  Thus 
stand  my  affairs  ;  as  compared  with  my  prosperity,  badly ; 
as  compared  with  my  adversity,  well.  My  private  con 
cerns  are,  as  you  know,  in  great  disorder.  There  are, 
moreover,  some  domestic  matters  which  I  do  not  trust 
to  letters.  [He  alludes  especially  to  his  wife  Terentia, 
whose  quarrels  with  his  brother  vexed  him.]  I  love  my 
brother,"  he  adds,  "  as  I  ought,  for  the  goodness,  fidelity, 
and  affection  which  he  displays.  I  expect  you,  and  beg 
of  you  to  come  quickly  ;  and  when  you  come,  be  prepared 
to  give  me  the  benefit  of  your  counsel.  I  am,  as  it  were, 
beginning  life  anew.  Already,  some  of  those  who  de 
fended  me  while  absent,  are  beginning  secretly  to  hate 
me  now  that  I  am  present,  and  to  show  their  envy  openly. 
....  The  consuls,  by  the  advice  of  the  council,  estimated 
my  town  house  at  2,000,000  sesterces  (£16,145) ;  and  the 
rest  very  meanly — my  Tusculan  villa  at  500,000  sesterces 


374  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

(£4036),  and  my  Formian  villa  at  250,000  (£2018).  This 
valuation  is  found  great  fault  with,  not  only  by  the  nobles, 
but  even  by  the  people.  What  is  the  reason  ?  you  will 
ask.  They  say,  it  was  my  own  modesty — because  I  nei 
ther  refused  the  offer  nor  clamored  for  more.  But  it  was 
not  so.  It  would  have  been  useless  for  me  to  attempt  op 
position.  It  was  they,  my  Pomponius,  it  was  they,  I  say 
— you  know  them :  those  who  clipped  my  wings  did  not 

wish  them  to  grow  again My  domestic  affairs  are 

much  embarrassed.  My  house  is  rebuilding.  You  know 
at  what  expense  and  with  what  trouble  my  villa  at  For- 
mise  is  being  repaired  ;  I  can  neither  give  it  up,  nor  bear 
to  see  it  as  it  is.  My  house  at  Tusculum  I  have  put  up 
for  sale.  I  can  not  easily  do  without  my  suburban  resi 
dence The  other  things  which  vex  me  are  of  a 

more  secret  nature.  Love  from  my  brother  and  daugh 
ter." 

And  again,  some  days  afterward  :  "  The  workmen  were 

driven  away  from  my  abode  by  armed  men The 

house  of  my  brother  Gluintus  was  first  broken  into  by 
stones  thrown  from  the  site  on  which  mine  is  building, 
and  then  set  fire  to  by  order  of  Clodius — the  fire  being  put 
to  it  in  sight  of  the  whole  city,  to  the  great  indignation  and 
regret,  I  will  not  say,  of  the  good,  not  knowing  whether 

there  be  any  such,  but  literally  of  every  one As  I 

was  coming  down  the  Via  Sacra,  he  followed  me  with  his 
gang.  Abuse,  stones,  sticks,  swords,  every  thing  was  flying. 
I  ran  into  the  vestibule  of  Tettius  Damio.  Those  who  were 
with  me  easily  prevented  his  coming  in.  He  might  him 
self  have  been  killed  ;  but  I  like  to  cure  things  by  diet ;  I 
hate  surgery.  Now  that  he  sees  that  he  will  be  led,  not 
to  trial,  but  to  present  punishment,  he  exceeds  the  violence 
even  of  Catiline.  .  .  .  Thus  he  besieged  and  tried  to  burn 
the  house  of  Milo,  going  openly,  about  the  fifth  hour,  taking 
men  with  shields  and  drawn  swords,  and  others  carrying 

lighted  torches He  threatens  the  city  in  the  event 

of  his  not  gaining  his  election.   ...  I  think  Publius  Clo- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  375 

dius  will  be  brought  to  trial  by  Milo,  if  not  previously 
killed.  I  am  sure  Milo  will  kill  him  if  he  meets  him. 
Milo  hesitates  at  nothing  ;  he  goes  boldly  to  work,  and 
thinks  lightly  of  what  happened  to  me.  He  never  con 
fides  in  any  cowardly  or  perfidious  adviser.,  neither  does 

he  trust  to  the  indolent  nobility As  for  me,  I  am 

still  vigorous  in  mind — at  all  events,  even  more  than  in 
my  prosperity." 

Clodius  again  triumphed  over  the  senate,  over  Pompey, 
and  over  the  well-disposed  citizens,  being  elected  asdile, 
owing  to  the  corruption  and  violence  of  the  populace. 
Pompey,  Csesar,  and  Crassus,  who  formed  a  military  tri 
umvirate  above  all  these  passing  storms  in  Rome,  joined 
Cicero.  They,  as  well  as  Pompey,  who  was  too  much  ab 
sorbed  in  his  vainglory,  bewailed  the  calamities  of  the 
country.  Cicero  withdrew  from  politics,  and  kept  away 
from  the  senate,  in  order  to  occupy  himself  exclusively 
with  the  eloquence  of  the  bar,  literature,  and  poetry.  In 
his  country  house  at  Antium  he  wrote  an  epic  poem  on 
thq  victories  of  Csesar,  to  win  the  friendship  of  that  hero, 
whose  greatness  he  foresaw,  without,  however,  foreseeing 
that  he  would  destroy  the  Republic.  He  composed  another 
poem  on  his  own  misfortunes,  and  several  books  of  history. 
He  watched  the  education  of  his  son ;  he  enjoyed  the 
beauty,  affection,  and  literary  genius  of  his  daughter  Tul- 
lia;  he  enriched  his  country  houses  with  new  libraries, 
purchased  at  a  great  expense  in  Greece  by  his  friend  At- 
ticus,  to  supply  the  place  of  the  books  which  Clodius  had 
burned  during  his  proscription.  He  defended  Csesar  in 
the  senate  against  those  who,  finding  him  already  too  pow 
erful,  wished  to  withdraw  from  his  command  the  army  of 
Gaul.  Lastly,  he  wrote  a  poem,  in  four  cantos,  on  the 
events  of  his  own  consulate.  He  was  as  happy  as  a  man 
can  be  who  feels  that  his  country  is  on  the  verge  of  de 
struction. 

Events  were  proceeding  rapidly,  and  the  ruin  from 
which  he  was  momentarily  sheltered  was  not  likely  to  be 


376  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

long  in  reaching  him.  Rome  was  infested  by  factions  and 
violence.  The  military  triumvirate  of  Crassus,  Pompey, 
and  Csesar,  the  only  element  of  security  for  the  shadow  of 
the  Republic  that  still  remained,  was  falling  to  pieces. 
Crassus,  who  had  taken  the  government  of  Asia,  had  lost 
his  legions  and  his  life  in  the  Parthian  war.  Julia,  Csesar's 
daughter  and  Pompey's  wife,  the  pledge  of  amity  between 
these  two  rivals,  died,  carrying  their  concord  with  her  to 
the  grave.  Milo  having  met  Clodius  on  his  way  to  his 
country  house,  the  servants  who  escorted  the  two  adver 
saries  abused  each  other,  and  at  length  fought.  Milo 
sprang  from  his  litter,  where  he  was  lying  without  arms, 
and  unsuspicious  of  attack,  by  his  wife's  side,  seized  a 
weapon,  and  struck  down  Clodius  in  the  tumult.  The 
bleeding  corpse  of  the  favorite  of  the  populace,  brought 
back  to  Rome  and  laid  out  on  the  rostrum,  was  consumed 
by  his  partisans  on  a  pile,  wrhose  flames,  fanned  by  his 
avengers,  spread  to  the  neighboring  temple  and  to  the 
palace  of  the  senate,  and  burned  them  to  the  ground — a 
funeral  worthy  of  this  incendiary  tribune,  the  curse  of  his 
country.  Pompey,  elected  consul,  filled  the  public  square 
with  armed  soldiery,  and  the  people  proceeded  to  try  Milo. 
Cicero  defended  him  in  a  speech  often  interrupted  by  the 
clash  of  arms,  but  recomposed  by  himself  after  its  deliv 
ery,  in  all  its  beauty  and  with  all  its  energy  of  improv 
isation. 

"  I  have  justified  Milo  from  the  accusation  laid  to  his 
charge,"  he  says  at  the  close  of  his  speech,  "  and  if  I  had 
not  done  so,  yet  Milo  might  openly  and  with  impunity 
have  boasted  and  lied,  saying,  I  have  killed,  I  have  killed, 
not  Spurius  Mo3lius,  who,  because  he  seemed  to  be  mak 
ing  himself  too  popular,  by  procuring  corn  and  wasting 
his  private  property,  fell  under  the  suspicion  of  aiming  at 
royalty  —  not  Titus  Gracchus,  who  seditiously  abrogated 
his  colleague's  magistracy,  and  whose  murderers  filled  the 
wide  world  with  the  horror  of  their  name  —  but  I  have 
killed  (and  he  might  dare  to  say  it,  who  had  liberated  his 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  377 

country  from  the  danger)  a  man  whose  audacious  adultery 
was  discovered  by  noble  ladies  in  the  most  holy  sanctuary 
—a  man  by  whose  punishment  the  senate  has  often  de 
clared  that  solemn  expiations  were  to  be  satisfied — a  man 
whom  Lucius  Lucullus  declared  on  oath  that  he  had  dis 
covered  in  incest  with  his  own  sister  —  a  man  who,  by 
means  of  his  armed  slaves,  murdered  a  citizen  whom  the 
senate,  the  people,  and  all  nations  regarded  as  the  savior 
of  the  city  and  of  the  lives  of  the  people — a  man  who  gave 
and  took  away  kingdoms,  and  distributed  the  universe  as 
he  thought  fit  —  a  man  who,  after  committing  various 
murders  in  the  forum,  drove  home  by  force  a  citizen  of 
singular  virtue  and  honor — a  man  who  acknowledged  no 
bounds  in  violence  or  lust — who  burned  the  temple  of  the 
Nymphs  that  he  might  destroy  the  public  record  of  the 
census  engraved  on  the  common  roll — who,  in  short,  ac 
knowledged  no  law,  no  civil  right,  no  territorial  limits — 
who  took  possession  of  other  men's  property,  not  by  mali 
cious  lawsuits,  unjust  trials,  or  false  oaths,  but  by  invading 
them  with  a  regular  army,  with  ensigns  displayed — who 
not  only  endeavored  to  expel  from  their  possessions  by 
force  of  arms  the  Etruscans  (whom  he  thoroughly  despised), 
but  even  duintus  Varius,  a  brave  man,  and  one  of  our 
judges — a  man  who  used  to  go  through  farms  and  gardens 
with  architects  and  surveyors,  his  hopes  of  possession 
being  bounded  only  by  the  Janiculum  and  the  Alps  ;  for 
when  Titus  Pacuvius,  a  noble  Roman  knight  and  a  man 
of  courage,  refused  to  sell  him  an  island  in  the  Praeliari 
Lake,  he  suddenly  conveyed  timber,  lime,  cement,  build 
ing  materials,  and  arms  to  the  spot,  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  erect  a  building  on  land  not  belonging  to  him,  with  the 
owner  looking  on  from  the  opposite  bank.  And  to  Titus 
Furfanius  even,  such  a  man !  Immortal  gods  !  (for  need  I 
mention  the  defenseless  woman  Scantia?  or  the  boy  Appo- 
nius  ?  both  of  whom  he  threatened  with  death  unless  they 
yielded  their  gardens  to  him) — he  dared  to  tell  Furfanius 
that,  if  he  gave  him  not  the  money  he  demanded,  he  would 


378  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

convey  a  corpse  into  his  house,  so  that  the  suspicion  of 
murder  might  ruin  him.  ...  I  fear  not,  judges,  lest  you 
should  think  that  from  a  recollection  of  my  own  quarrels, 
I  pour  forth  these  accusations  in  accordance  rather  with 
personal  dislike  than  with  truth.  Doubtless  my  hatred 
ought  to  be  the  greatest,  but  he  was  so  much  the  common 
enemy  of  all,  that  mine  hardly  equals  the  universal  exe 
cration.  It  is  impossible  to  express  in  language,  or  even 
to  conceive  in  thought,  the  extent  of  his  wickedness  and 
villainy.  Now  attend  to  this,  ye  judges.  This  is  a  ques 
tion  concerning  the  death  of  Publius  Clodius.  Now  pic 
ture  to  yourselves — for  our  thoughts  are  free,  and  we  be 
hold  in  imagination  what  we  will,  even  as  we  see  what 
is  before  our  eyes — imagine  to  yourselves,  then,  that  I  am 
placed  in  such  a  predicament  that  I  can  get  you  to  acquit 
Milo  only  with  this  condition,  that  Publius  Clodius  return 
to  life.  Ha!  you  turn  pale  !  What  then  would  be  your 
feelings  were  he  living,  when  even  the  bare  idea  of  his 
reviving  strikes  you  with  terror  ?  .  .  .  . 

"  The  Greeks  render  divine  honors  to  men  who  have 
killed  tyrants.  What  have  I  not  seen  at  Athens,  and  in 
the  other  cities  of  Greece  !  what  divine  ceremonies  are  in 
stituted  there  in  honor  of  such  men !  what  songs !  what 
hymns !  They  are  consecrated  to  a  religion  and  fame  al 
most  immortal.  And  will  you  suffer  the  preserver  of  so 
great  a  nation,  the  avenger  of  so  great  a  crime,  not  only  to 
receive  no  honors,  but  even  to  be  led  to  execution  ?  .  .  .  . 

"  There  is — there  is,  indeed,  that  divine  power  ;  and  if 
in  these  our  bodies  and  in  our  weak  frames  there  resides 
a  principle  of  action  and  thought,  surely  it  also  exists  in 
the  great  and  splendid  movement  of  the  universe.  Some 
perhaps  may  believe  that  it  does  not  exist,  because  it  is 
not  apparent  or  visible  ;  as  if  we  could  even  see  or  plainly 
distinguish  how  and  where  lives  this  our  mind,  through 
which  we  know,  with  which  we  reason,  and  by  which  we 
do  and  say  what  we  are  now  acting.  That  power  is  the 
very  agent  which  has  so  often  brought  incredible  happi- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  379 

ness  and  wealth  to  this  city,  which  destroyed  and  removed 
that  pest ;  which  first  put  it  into  his  thought  to  venture  to 
offer  force,  and  make  an  armed  attack  against  that  cour 
ageous  man,  and  to  be  conquered  by  him,  whom  if  he  had 
conquered,  he  would  have  enjoyed  eternal  impunity  and 
license.  Not  by  human  counsel,  ye  judges,  nor  indeed  by 
moderate  care  of  the  immortal  gods,  was  this  thing  accom 
plished.  Religion  itself,  when  that  wild  beast  was  fall 
ing,  seems  to  have  been  aroused,  and  to  have  claimed  the 
vengeance  for  its  own.  You,  therefore,  0  Alb  an  hills  and 
groves — you,  I  say,  I  call  upon  and  attest,  and  you  also, 
ruined  altars  of  Alba,  of  rites  coeval  and  coequal  with 
those  of  Rome,  which  this  man,  headlong  in  his  impiety, 
overwhelmed  with  insane  masses  of  building,  after  felling 
and  cutting  down  the  most  sacred  groves — then,  when  he 
had  filled  the  cup  of  crime,  then  did  your  altars  and  your 
holy  rites  show  their  power,  then  was  your  might  exerted. 
And  thou,  from  thy  holy  mount,  Jupiter,  great  god  of  the 
Latins,  whose  lakes,  and  grove,  and  boundaries  he  had 
often  profaned  with  foul  adultery  and  sin,  then  didst  thou 
wake  to  punish  him — by  you  all,  and  in  your  presence, 
was  his  late,  but  just  and  well-merited  retribution  inflicted ! 

"  Can  it  be  said  to  be  by  chance  that  it  was  before  the 
very  fane  of  the  Good  Goddess  (Bona  Dea),  on  the  domain 
of  Titus  Sextius  Gallus,  one  of  the  best  and  most  honored 
of  our  young  nobility — that  it  was  under  the  eyes  of  the 
Good  Goddess  herself  that  he  engaged  in  the  fight,  and  re 
ceived  that  first  wound  which  led  to  his  fearful  death? 
It  thus  appeared  that  he  was  not  absolved  from  the  guilt 
of  his  sacrilege,  but  reserved  for  an  exemplary  penalty. 

'*  Was  it  not  also  the  same  anger  of  the  gods  that  struck 
his  adherents  with  such  insanity,  that  without  ancestral 
images,  without  song,  or  hymn,  or  sepulchral  pomp,  with 
out  lamentation  or  eulogy,  and  without  religion,  he  was 
thrown  on  the  burning  pile  all  stained  with  dirt  and  gore, 
and  deprived  of  those  last  ceremonies  which  even  an  ene 
my  does  not  refuse  ?  I  think  it  did  not  accord  with  the 


380  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

justice  of  heaven  that  the  obsequies  used  for  men  of  worth 
should  reflect  any  portion  of  their  honor  on  the  funeral 
rites  of  the  parricide.  No  place  was  fitter  for  his  disgrace 
in  death  than  that  which  he  had  polluted  in  life. 

"  Hard  indeed  and  cruel,  by  the  ordinance  of  the  Al 
mighty,  seemed  to  me  the  fate  of  the  Roman  people,  which 
saw  and  suffered  him  for  so  many  years  to  outrage  this 
our  Republic.  Our  holy  mysteries  he  had  polluted  with 
adultery ;  the  weightiest  decrees  of  the  senate  he  had  set 
at  naught ;  he  had  openly  purchased  his  acquittal  by  the 
judges  ;  in  his  tribuneship  he  had  bearded  the  senate  ;  he 
had  rescinded  what  had  been  resolved  by  all  parties  for 
the  safety  of  the  Republic  ;  myself  he  had  driven  from  my 
country,  plundered  my  goods,  burned  my  house,  persecuted 
my  wife  and  children  ;  he  had  declared  an  unjust  war 
against  Cneius  Pornpey ;  he  had  slaughtered  magistrates 
and  private  citizens  ;  he  had  set  fire  to  my  brother's  house  ; 
he  had  wasted  Etruria,  and  robbed  many  persons  of  their 
estates  and  property.  Energetic  and  insatiable  in  crime, 
our  city,  Italy  and  the  provinces,  and  even  our  subject 
kingdoms,  could  not  contain  his  fury.  .  .  . 

"  As  for  myself,  indeed,  my  judges,  I  am  moved  and  af 
flicted  at  these  words  of  Milo  which  I  hear  continually, 
and  which  are  daily  repeated  to  me.  '  Farewell !  fare 
well  !  he  says,  fellow-citizens !  fare  ye  well !  May  ye 
be  happy,  safe,  and  flourishing !  And  all  hail  to  this  glo 
rious  city — my  own  dear  father-land,  however  it  may  have 
treated  me.  May  the  citizens  without  me,  yet  by  my 
means,  be  restored  to  a  tranquil  state.  I  yield  arid  depart. 
But  if  I  must  not  enjoy  the  advantages  of  the  Republic, 
at  least  I  will  be  without  its  evils  ;  and  the  first  well-or 
dered  and  free  city  I  reach,  in  that  will  I  abide.  Oh  '  for 
my  vainly-undertaken  toils  !  he  will  say.  Oh  !  for  my 
blighted  hopes  !  Oh  !  for  my  idle  expectations  !  When 
I,  a  tribune  of  the  people,  in  the  distress  of  the  Republic, 
gave  assistance  to  the  senate,  which  I  found  crushed  ;  to 
the  Roman  knights,  whose  power  had  vanished ;  to  the 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  331 

good,  whom  the  violence  of  Clodius  had  deprived  of  all  au 
thority — could  I  imagine  that  the  countenance  of  the  good 
would  ever  fail  me  ?  When  1  restored  you  (for  he  often 
converses  with  me)  to  your  country,  could'  I  expect  that 
my  country  would  have  no  place  for  me  ?  Where  is  now 
the  senate,  whose  orders  we  obeyed  ?  Where  are  now  the 
Roman  knights — those  Roman  knights  of  yours  ?  Where 
is  now  the  support  of  the  boroughs  ?  Where  are  the  ac 
clamations  of  Italy?  And  you  too,  Marcus  Tullius,  where 
is  your  voice,  and  your  advocacy,  which  have  saved  so 
many  ?  To  me  alone,  who  have  so  often  risked  death  for 
you,  can  it  give  no  help !'.... 

"  Romans  !  who  have  shed  your  blood  for  the  Republic, 
upon  you  I  call !  Centurions!  and  you.  soldiers!  I  appeal 
to  you  in  the  danger  of  a  brave  citizen  and  unconquered 
warrior — to  you  who  are  not  mere  spectators,  but  the  arm 
ed  protectors  of  this  court — shall  such  virtue  be  expelled 
our  city — be  destroyed — be  banished  ?  Woe  !  woe  is  me  ! 
Through  them,  Milo,  you  could  recall  me  to  our  country. 
Can  I  not  by  their  means  retain  you  here  ?  What  shall  I 
say  to  my  children,  who  look  upon  you  as  a  second  father? 
what  to  you,  duintus,  my  brother,  and  my  companion  in 
my  hour  of  affliction  ? — that  I  could  not  secure  the  safety 
of  Milo  through  the  same  means  by  which  he  procured 
mine  ?  And  in  what  cause  am  I  so  powerless  ?  In  that 
which  is  favored  by  all.  From  whom  can  I  not  secure  it  1 
From  those  who  entirely  acquiesced  in  the  death  of  Pub- 
lius  Clodius.  Of  what  horrible  crime  was  I  guilty,  or  what 
great  wickedness  did  I  commit,  ye  judges,  when  I  detected, 
exposed,  prosecuted,  and  destroyed  those  seeds  of  univer 
sal  destruction  ?  And  yet  from  that  source  all  the  misfor 
tunes  of  myself  and  my  friends  arise.  Why  did  you  bid 
me  return  ?  Was  it  in  order  to  expel,  before  my  own  eyes, 
those  who  had  been  the  means  of  restoring  me  ?  Do  not, 
I  conjure  you,  suffer  my  return  to  be  more  bitter  to  me 
than  even  my  departure  into  exile.  How  can  I  believe 
myself  restored  to  my  home,  if  I  am  torn  away  from  those 


382  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

by  whom  I  was  brought  back?  Rather  than  see  this, 
would  that  the  immortal  gods  had  made — forgive  me,  0 
my  country,  for  I  fear  lest  my  good  wishes  for  Milo  may 
be  a  curse  to  thee  ! — would  that  Clodius  n^t  only  lived, 
but  had  become  Prsstor,  Consul,  and  even  Dictator  !  Im 
mortal  gods  !  truly  the  man  has  courage,  and  is  worthy  of 
your  protection,  judges  !  No,  no!  he  tells  me,  Clodius  has 
suffered  a  just  punishment :  I  am  ready,  if  necessary,  to 
undergo  an  unjust  one.  Shall  such  a  man,  born  for  his 
country's  good,  die  elsewhere  than  in  his  country  ?  or  if, 
perchance,  he  perishes  for  the  country,  will  you  profit  by 
the  effects  of  his  valor,  and  yet  deny  his  corpse  a  grave  in 
Italy  ?  Will  any  one  of  you  by  his  vote  banish  from  this 
city  a  man  whom,  when  banished  by  you,  all  other  cities 
will  invite  to  them  ?  Happy  the  country  which  shall  re 
ceive  him !  Great  the  ingratitude  of  Rome  if  it  expel 
him  !  Great  its  misfortune  if  it  lose  him  !  But,  no  more 
of  this  ,  my  tears  choke  my  utterance.  It  is  not  by  tears 
that  Milo  must  be  defended." 

After  having  for  five  years  performed  the  functions  of 
pontiff,  Cicero  obtained  the  government  of  Cilicia,  under 
the  title  of  General,  Proconsul,  and  Administrator  of  that 
province  of  Asia  which  bordered  on  Greece  on  the  one 
side,  and  Syria  on  the  other.  He  had  under  his  orders 
an  army  of  twenty  thousand  men,  independently  of  the 
auxiliary  troops  of  the  princes  allied  to  Rome.  The  ge 
nius  of  the  Roman  people  was,  as  we  have  already  shown, 
universal.  No  army  would  have  scorned  its  chief  for  be 
ing  at  the  same  time  the  first  orator,  the  first  poet,  and 
the  first  magistrate  of  his  country;  no  assembly  of  people 
collected  round  the  rostrum  would  have  reproached  an 
orator  for  having  won  victories.  All  that  did  honor  to  the 
man  shed  lustre  on  his  actions.  The  new  general,  follow 
ing  the  advice  of  Pompey,  whose  advice  he  had  gone  to 
Tarentum  to  take,  as  that  of  an  authority  on  the  art  of 
war,  answered  worthily  to  the  confidence  reposed  in  him 
by  his  country.  He  relieved  the  remains  of  the  army  of 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  333 

Crassus,  who  were  with  difficulty  making  head  in  Syria 
against  the  unconquered  forces  of  the  Parthians,  the  only 
rivals  of  the  Roman  name  in  Asia.  Sweeping  down  from 
the  Taurus,  the  Cilician  Alps,  at  the  head  of  forty  thou 
sand  men,  he  attacked  them  under  the  walls  of  Antioch, 
where  they  had  beleaguered  the  Roman  army  of  Syria, 
and  drove  them  back  into  their  deserts.  On  his  return 
from  this  expedition,  he  subdued  Cappadocia,  a  kingdom 
bordering  on  Cilicia,  which  had  revolted  from  the  yoke  of 
Rome.  He  restored  to  his  throne  King  Ariobarzanes,  a 
partisan  of  Rome  ;  and,  although  poor,  generously  refused 
the  tribute  which  this  monarch  offered  him  as  the  price 
of  his  restoration.  Faithful  to  the  principles  of  disinter 
estedness  and  virtue,  which  he  had  taken  for  the  rule  of 
his  life,  and  which  he  had  professed  in  one  of  his  most 
beautiful  books  On  the  Republic,  he  even  declined  the  ex 
pensive  quarters  and  burdensome  hospitality  which  it  was 
the  duty  of  allied  cities  to  provide  for  the  Proconsuls.  He 
marked  the  contrast  between  the  government  of  a  philos 
opher  and  the  oppression  of  a  conqueror.  He  reconciled 
them  to  the  dominion  of  Rome,  and  made  them  bless  his 
name.  The  provinces  called  him  their  Father,  and  the 
troops  proclaimed  him  Imperator,  the  glorious  title  which 
was  generally  followed  by  a  triumph.  The  increasing 
•  troubles  of  Rome  withdrew  him  from  these  honors.  He 
returned  to  the  city  with  the  rods  of  his  lictors  bound  with 
laurel — the  symbol  of  a  fortunate  expedition.  "When  he 
arrived,  Rome,  triumphant  in  her  extremities,  was  decayed 
at  the  heart. 

The  rivalry  between  Csesar  and  Pompey,  no  longer 
counterbalanced  by  Crassus,  had  been  increased  and  em 
bittered  during  Cicero's  absence.  Caesar  asked  the  senate 
for  a  prolongation  of  his  term  of  power,  an  extension  of 
his  provinces,  more  legions  for  his  army,  and  honors  which 
would  have  made  him  sovereign  of  the  Republic.  Pom 
pey,  the  supporter  of  the  Republic,  the  senate,  and  the  cit 
izens,  refused  these  requests.  Open  war  was  on  the  point 


384  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

of  breaking  out  between  these  two  rivals  ;  too  great  for 
the  country,  and  almost  for  the  world,  to  hold  them  both. 
A  third  party,  formed  both  of  incorruptible  Republicans, 
such  as  Cato,  Brutus,  and  their  friends,  and  of  agitators 
of  the  people,  the  remnants  of  the  popular  factions  of  Clo- 
dius,  threatened  the  Republic  with  confusion,  under  pre 
tense  of  defending  it ;  while  Caesar  and  Pompey  threaten 
ed  it  with  tyranny,  under  the  pretext  of  saving  it.  Of 
these  three  alternatives,  into  which  the  quick  and  penetrat 
ing  glance  of  Cicero  enabled  him  to  see  farther  than  com 
mon,  he  no  longer  cared  to  inquire  which  was  the  best,  but 
which  was  the  least  evil  for  the  Republic.  The  democrat 
ic  tyranny  of  the  people,  stirred  by  its  factions,  he  held  in 
aversion.  The  shade  of  Clodius — the  dangers  he  had  him 
self  incurred — his  friends  who  had  been  killed — the  hon 
ors  he  had  lost — the  banishment  he  had  undergone — his 
houses  burned  —  the  recollection  of  the  tumults  of  the 
Gracchi — the  atrocities  of  Marius,  and  the  executions  of 
Sylla,  made  him  dread  a  return  to  civil  commotion.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  meeting  of  Roman  armies  in  the  very 
heart  of  Italy,  under  Pompey  and  Caesar,  afforded  only  a 
prospect  of  a  war  of  Romans  against  each  other,  and  of  an 
absolute  and  unbalanced  supremacy  to  the  conqueror.  On 
one  side  was  anarchy,  on  the  other  the  destruction  of  the 
Republic.  In  this  perplexity  it  was  impossible,  yet  nee-  • 
essary  for  him  to  choose.  He  preferred  adjourning  his  de 
cision,  and  allowing  time  for  the  fortune  of  Rome  and  the 
chapter  of  accidents,  which  might  perchance  arrest  his 
country's  descent  into  the  depth  of  calamity.  All  parties, 
with  the  exception  of  the  demagogues,  his  eternal  enemies, 
were  eager  to  win  over  Cicero,  as  though  he  had  been  the 
arbiter  of  destiny.  He  hesitated  to  decide.  Caesar  wrote 
to  him  flattering  letters,  in  which  he  exculpated  himself 
from  all  leaning  toward  tyranny,  and  asked  Cicero  to  judge 
between  him  and  Pompey,  giving  him  in  his  letters  the 
title  of  Imperator,  which  he  himself  adopted,  as  if  to  raise 
the  orator  to  his  own  level  in  military  glory,  while  he 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  335 

placed  himself  far  below  him  in  civil  rank.  Pompey  beg 
ged  of  him  to  restore  his  friendship,  arid  to  grant  him  an 
interview  in  one  of  his  country  houses  before  returning  to 
Rome,  Cicero  assented.  These  two  men,  the  greatest  in 
Rome,  and,  with  the  exception  of  Cato,  the  most  patriotic, 
passed  a  whole  day  in  Pompey's  garden  in  secret  confer 
ence  on  the  interests  of  the  Republic.  Cicero  employed 
all  the  power  of  his  eloquence,  all  the  fervor  of  his  patri 
otism,  all  the  warmth  of  his  friendship,  to  convince  Pom 
pey  of  the  necessity  of  a  reconciliation  with  Caesar,  for  the 
glory  of  the  gods  and  the  safety  of  Rome.  Pompey  de 
clared  it  to  be  impossible.  Irritated  at  the  insatiable  de 
mands  of  a  rival  no  longer  contented  with  half  the  em 
pire  ;  knowing,  from  Caesar's  ambition,  from  his  overtures 
to  the  popular  party,  from  his  thirst  for  honors,  and  from 
his  ambiguous  negotiations,  that  no  peace  with  such  a 
man  could  be  final ;  feeling  himself,  moreover,  surround 
ed  and  supported  in  Italy  by  the  almost  unanimous  feel 
ing  of  indignation  at  Caesar's  menaces,  and  which  prom 
ised  him  that,  if  he  "  merely  stamped  his  foot  on  the 
ground,  armed  legions  would  spring  up  from  it"  against 
his  rival,  Pompey  finally  resolved  to  refer  the  issue  to  the 
fortune  of  war.  His  valor,  as  well  as  his  ambition,  urged 
him  to  this  extreme  step  ;  for  his  ambition  was  great, 
though  honorable.  He  loved  the  Republic  ;  and,  in  mak 
ing  himself  the  champion  of  the  laws,  the  senate,  the  peo 
ple,  and  the  liberty  of  Italy,  it  was  not  only  his  own  glory, 
but  his  country,  his  ancestors,  and  the  posterity  of  Rome 
that  he  defended  while  defending  himself! 

Cicero,  having  obtained  nothing  by  his  interview,  re 
turned  to  Rome,  where  he  was  received  as  the  last  hope 
of  the  well-disposed  citizens.  But  his  welcome  seemed 
mournful  to  him,  and  on  passing  into  the  city  by  the  tri 
umphal  gate,  he  felt,  as  he  himself  writes,  "  that  he  was 
entering  on  a  civil  war." 

A  few  days  afterward  it  actually  burst  out,  and  threw 
Cicero  into  a  perplexity,  owing  to  which  he  has  frequent- 

VOL.  I  — R  , 

7 


386  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

ly  "been  accused  of  weakness,  but  which,  in  reality,  was 
rather  anguish  for  the  expiring  Republic  than  the  agony 
of  personal  irresolution. 

Caesar,  tired  of  waiting  to  receive  from  Pompey  and  the 
senate  gratifications  corresponding  to  his  ambition,  at 
length  decided  on  making  war  on  his  country.  Descend 
ing  froni  the  Alps  upon  Lower  Italy  at  the  head  of  sever 
al  legions,  he  had  crossed  the  Rubicon,  a  little  rivulet 
which  formed  the  legal  boundary  of  his  government  of 
Gaul,  and  the  forcible  passage  of  which  declared  him  a 
public  enemy.  "  The  die  is  cast,"  was  Caesar's  exclama 
tion,  on  spurring,  after  long  hesitation,  his  horse  into  the 
waters  of  the  Rubicon.  That  exclamation  was  the  end  of 
the  Republic.  From  the  moment  that  treason  seemed  to 
a  citizen  to  be  only  a  game  at  hazard,  with  the  world  as 
a  stake,  and  when  the  soldiers  were  no  longer  Romans, 
but  mercenaries,  liberty,  which  only  consists  with  public 
virtue,  could  no  longer  exist,  and  Italy  was  thenceforth 
only  worthy  of  becoming  the  prey  and  the  sport  of  ambi 
tion. 

All  Italy,  nevertheless,  shuddered  at  Ceesar's  attempt. 
One  universal  cry  of  horror  and  indignation  was  raised 
from  the  Rubicon  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  the  remot 
est  provinces  under  her  dominion.  Although  there  was 
no  longer  any  pretense  of  doubt  concerning  the  irresistible 
"ascendency  which  the  armies  and  their  chiefs,  the  holders 
of  the  great  governments,  the  dictators,  in  fact,  possessed 
in  the  Republic  since  the  corruption  of  public  morality, 
yet,  if  people  no  longer  believed  in  virtue,  they  believed 
in  shame.  But  the  shameless  crime  of  the  Rubicon  made 
the  very  soil  of  Italy  tremble.  It  was  for  a  moment  ex 
pected  that  the  ground  would  open  to  swallow  up  the 
wretch  who  had  dared  to  turn  the  arms  of  Rome  against 
Rome  herself.  Csesar  was  astonished  at  the  general  ex 
citement  produced  by  his  audacity,  and  endeavored  to  al 
lay  it,  by  representing  to  the  populations  of  the  districts 
through  which  he  passed  that  he  was  a  victim  to  the  in- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  387 

gratitude  of  Pompey  and  of  the  senate,  and  that  he  came, 
not  to  enslave  his  country,  but  to  demand  justice  for  his 
soldiers  and  himself.  He  pretended  to  negotiate,  to  offer, 
and  to  discuss  temperate  conditions  of  concord  and  peace, 
while  his  lieutenants  and  emissaries,  by  presents  and  in 
timidation,  were  bargaining,  decoying,  and  buying  Rome 
itself  within  its  own  walls.  Cicero,  more  courted  by  him 
than  any  of  the  influential  men  of  the  Republic,  had  a 
near  view  of  the  progress  of  Csesar,  the  delusion  of  the 
good  citizens,  the  depravity  of  the  bad,  the  sloth  and  ma 
jestic  inertness  of  Pompey.  He  tried  more  than  ever  to 
prevent  the  encounter  by  a  pacific  arrangement  between 
the  two  rivals.  Csesar  wrote  to  him  frequently,  and,  pre 
tending  to  choose  him  as  an  arbitrator  between  Pompey 
and  himself,  threw  upon  Cicero  the  apparent  responsibil 
ity  of  the  universe.  But,  while  waiting  the  result  of  Cic 
ero's  intervention,  he  continued  his  march,  increasing  his 
party  in  every  province  through  which  he  passed,  by  ev 
ery  town,  and  by  every  legion  which  one  after  another 
the  inconceivable  inertness  of  Pompey  allowed  him  to  ap 
proach,  and  to  get  possession  of  by  terror  or  persuasion. 
He  mastered  Italy  stage  by  stage,  and,  surrounded  by  an 
army  of  Gauls,  whom  he  had  trained  to  war  and  enrolled 
in  his  cohorts,  he  was  the  first  to  lead  barbarians  against 
his  country.  Coriolanus,  who  had  formerly  brought  the 
Volscians  to  Rome,  had  done  nothing  more  monstrous, 
and  he  had  at  least  the  excuse  of  vengeance  upon  those 
who  had  banished  him  from  his  own  land.  Csesar's  only 
cause  of  vengeance  was  the  honor  and  power  he  had  re 
ceived  from  Rome  ;  yet  history  has  stigmatized  Coriola 
nus  and  deified  Csasar.  Such  is  the  justice  of  men  without 
reflection,  who  judge  of  the  morality  of  events  by  their 
success. 

Meanwhile  every  thing  was  turmoil  and  confusion  in 
Rome.  Pompey,  giving  up  the  defense  of  Italy,  retired 
with  the  senate,  the  loyal  citizens,  the  consuls,  the  pon 
tiffs,  the  tribunes,  the  laws,  and  the  gods  of  the  Capitol, 


388  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

and,  mustering  the  few  legions  that  were  attached  to  him 
personally,  formed,  too  late,  an  army  by  the  sea-shore. 
He  collected  at  Brundusium  all  the  naval  forces  of  the 
Republic,  and  appeared  uncertain  whether  to  await  Caesar's 
army  and  give  him  battle,  or  whether  to  embark  his  troops, 
resigning  the  soil  of  Italy  to  Caesar,  and  carrying  with  him 
across  the  sea  the  public  authorities  and  the  defenders  of 
liberty,  as  if  to  allow  vacancy  and  horror  to  protest  against 
the  sacrilege  of  the  invader. 

Cicero  groaned  at  this  policy  of  resignation  and  despair, 
more  worthy  of  a  discouraged  philosopher  than  of  a  great 
captain  like  Pompey.  Although  indignant  against  Csesar, 
and  not  hesitating  to  take  the  side  of  the  law,  the  gods, 
justice,  liberty,  and  the  Republic,  by  joining  Pompey's 
party,  which  now  represented,  it  might  be  said,  the  very 
conscience  of  the  Roman  people,  he  could  not  consent 
thus  to  abandon  Italy  and  himself.  It  seemed  to  him  to 
be  deserting  the  holiest  of  causes.  He  feared  committing 
a  fault  in  attending  Pompey  out  of  Italy,  or  being  guilty  of 
an  act  of  cowardice  in  not  following  the  Republic  wher 
ever  Pompey  carried  it.  In  this  perplexity,  he  remained 
quiet  and  irresolute  in  his  house  at  Formice,  out  of  Rome, 
and  equidistant  from  Csesar  who  was  advancing,  Pompey 
who  was  retreating,  praying  the  one  to  return  and  fight, 
and  the  other  to  pause  in  his  career  of  treason ;  and  ex 
pressing,  in  his  letters  to  his  friends  in  Rome,  the  agony 
of  his  uncertainty,  and  the  mortal  anguish  of  his  irreso 
lution. 

"  You  tell  me  to  bear  in  mind  my  deeds,  my  sayings, 
and  even  my  writings  :  you  do  well,  and  speak  as  a  friend, 
which  pleases  me;  but  you  seem  to  me  to  think  that  it 
would  be  honorable  and  worthy  of  myself  to  act  in  this 
cause  otherwise  than  as  I  think  proper.  To  me  it  seems 
that  never  in  any  nation  did  any  ruler  of  a  republic  or 
leader  of  an  army  behave  more  disgracefully  than  our 
friend  has  done  :  I  regret  the  part  he  has  acted  in  leav 
ing  the  city,  that  is,  our  country,  for  which  and  in  which 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  389 

it  would  have  been  noble  to  die.  You  appear  to  me  not 
to  consider  the  extent  of  this  misfortune.  We  are  now  in 
our  own  homes,  but  we  can  not  long  remain  there  if  these 
villains  oppose  it.  Can  any  thing  be  more  abject,  more 
vile  than  this,  that  we  are  to  wander,  suffering  from  want, 
with  our  wives  and  children  ?  We  heave  centred  all  our 
hopes  on  the  life  of  one  man,  who  is  annually  liable  to 
dangerous  illness,  and  who  has  not  been  forcibly  expelled, 
but  called  away  from  our  country  —  our  country,  which 
we  leave,  not  to  be  saved  for  our  return,  but  to  be  plun 
dered  and  ruined.  Thus  few  of  our  friends  are  now  in  the 
suburbs,  in  the  gardens,  or  in  the  town  itself,  and  if  any 
still  remain,  it  is  not  for  long.  In  the  mean  time,  we  are 
no  longer  at  Capua,  but  at  Luceria,  and  we  shall  soon 
leave  even  the  sea-shore.  .  .  .  What  is  the  result  of  all 
this  ?  I  would  willingly  give  up  my  life  for  Pompey.  I 
esteem  no  man  more.  But  I  do  not  think  the  hopes  of 
the  Republic  are  bound  up  in  him  alone.  .  .  .  What  mat 
ters  it  if  I  see  and  hear  the  tyrant  ?  or  what  better  exam 
ple  need  I  seek  than  Socrates,  who,  in  the  time  of  the 
Thirty  Tyrants,  did  not  set  foot  outside  the  gate  of  Ath 
ens  ?  .  .  .  You  praise  me  for  saying,  and  bid  me  remem 
ber  it,  that  I  would  rather  be  conquered  with  Pompey  than 
victorious  with  Csesar.  So  would  I  now,  but  with  that 
Pompey  which  he  then  was  or  seemed  to  be  ;  but  with 
this  Pompey  who  flies  before  he  knows  from  what  or  from 
whom,  with  this  Pompey  who  has  betrayed  our  cause,  left 
his  country,  and  quitted  Italy,  if  I  uttered  such  a  wish,  I 

have  obtained  it :   I  AM  beaten /  believe  you  will 

remember  what  my  opinion  has  always  been :  first,  to  retain 
peace,  even  under  unfavorable  conditions  ;  secondly,  to  retain 
the  city  (for  you  never  even  gave  me  a  hint  about  leaving  It 
aly)*.  ...  I  mourn  for  the  loss  of  the.  Republic  .... 
But  see  what  a  man  is  now  its  master !  how  acute,  how 
vigilant,  how  ready  !  If  he  kills  no  one,  and  robs  no  one 
*  The  passage  in  Italics  occurs  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Pompey  him 
self— TR. 


390  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO, 

of  any  thing,  he  will  be  most  beloved  by  those  who  most 
feared  him.  I  converse  with  many  from  the  small  towns 
and  from  the  country.  They  do  not  care  about  any  single 
thing  but  their  fields,  their  houses,  and  their  beggarly 
money.  See,  too,  how  matters  are  changed.  They  fear 
him  whom  formerly  they  loved,  and  they  love  him  whom 
they  used  to  fear."  .  .  . 

Then  bursting  into  virtuous  indignation  against  this 
same  Csesar,  whose  genius  he  had  just  been  admiring,  he 
writes  : 

"  0  the  wretch  !  the  breaker  of  laws  !  the  robber  !  the 
devastator  of  his  country !  .  .  .  .  Every  one  seems  going 
to  join  Pompey,  one  to-day,  another  to-morrow.  I  hear 
also  that  my  own  delay  is  not  approved  by  those  who  both 
now  are,  and  have  often  been,  of  great  support  to  the  Re 
public.  .  .  .  Well,  then,  let  me  go,  and,  to  prove  that  I 
am  a  good  citizen,  let  me  make  war  by  sea  and  land  on 
Italy."  .  .  . 

Still  he  lingered,  held  back  by  the  fatal  hesitation  be 
tween  shame  at  not  following  his  natural  party,  and  the 
crime  of  levying  war  against  his  country. 

"  To  divert  my  mind  from  these  thoughts,"  he  writes  to 
his  friend  and  confidant  Atticus,  "  I  have  taken  up  some 
themes  which  both  relate  to  general  politics  and  bear  upon 
these  times,  equally  to  withdraw  my  mind  from  vexation, 
and  to  exercise  it  on  what  is  before  me.  They  are  as  fol 
lows  :  Should  we  remain  in  our  country  when  it  is  ruled 
by  a  tyrant  ?  When  it  is  so  ruled,  should  the  destruction 
of  the  tyranny  be  effected  at  all  hazards,  even  although  it 
should  involve  the  utter  ruin  of  the  commonwealth  ?  Must 
precautions  be  taken  lest  the  destroyer  of  the  tyranny  be 
himself  raised  to  power  ?  Should  we  try  to  assist  the  en 
slaved  country  rather  by  watching  opportunities  for  nego 
tiation  than  by  war?  Is  it  patriotic  to  be  silent,  and  to 
retire,  when  the  country  is  enslaved  ?  Should  all  danger 
be  risked  for  the  sake  of  freedom  ?  Should  war  be  levied 
against  the  country,  and  its  cities  be  besieged,  when  it  is 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  39] 

subject  to  tyranny./  And  if  we  do  not  think  fit  to  levy 
war  to  crush  the  tyrant,  ought  we  to  join  the  strongest 
party  ?  In  civil  dissension,  must  we  side  with  our  friends 
and  benefactors,  even  when  they  do  not  well  for  the  com 
monwealth  ?  Must  he  who  has  greatly  benefited  his  na 
tive  land,  and  in  return  has  suffered  shameful  persecution 
and  abuse,  again  voluntarily  encounter  danger  for  his 
country  ?  May  such  a  man,  leaving  politics  to  those  in 
power,  make  provision  for  himself  and  his  family?" 

While  Cicero  was  debating  within  himself  these  ques 
tions,  of  which  his  secret  solution  may  easily  be  seen  by 
the  artful  tendency  of  their  arrangement  to  induce  his 
friend  to  resolve  them  in  the  sense  of  neutrality,  Caesar 
and  his  friends  in  Rome  begged  him  to  remain  neutral, 
and  he  excused  himself  to  Pompey  for  not  having  yet  join 
ed  him  on  account  of  the  impossibility  of  crossing  a  port 
of  Italy  already  swarming  with  Caesar's  troops.  At  length 
Pompey,  having  collected  at  Brundusium  all  his  legions, 
and  all  the  austere  Republicans,  such  as  Cassius,  Brutus, 
Labienus,  and  Cato,  at  Caesar's  approach  set  sail  for  the 
coast  of  Epirus,  taking  with  him  every  one  in  Rome  that 
deserved  the  name  of  Roman.  By  this  flight,  which  he 
had  so  strongly  blamed,  and  which  he  felt  such  repug 
nance  to  follow,  Cicero  found  himself  relieved  from  the 
oppressive  weight  of  his  previous  uncertainty. 

Immediately  after  Pompey's  departure,  all  Italy  was  at 
Caesar's  feet.  Rome  had  lost  her  self-respect,  and  was 
only  fit  to  serve  a  master.  This  degradation  of  his  coun 
try  raised  the  tone  of  Cicero's  mind  by  the  indignation 
and  shame  with  which  it  inspired  him.  Victory,  instead 
of  drawing  him  to  Caesar,  kept  him  away.  Success,  the 
loadstone  of  the  vulgar,  is  an  offense  to  great  minds.  He 
retired  to  Arpinum,  the  abode  of  his  fathers,  as  if  to  seek 
there  the  recollections  and  counsels  of  ancient  virtue,  and 
to  carry  with  him  into  solitude  his  grief  for  his  country's 
fall. 

"Formerly  I  was  perplexed  and  anxious,  as  might  have 


392  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

been  expected  from  the  state  of  things,  when  I  could  set 
tle  nothing  by  reflection.  Now,  however,  that  Pompey 
and  the  consuls  have  left  Italy,  I  am  no  longer  anxious, 
but  grievously  afflicted.  'My  heart  is  not  quiet — I  am 
frantic.'  I  tell  you  I  am  out  of  my  senses,  I  seem  to  have 
been  guilty  of  such  a  disgraceful  fault.  That  I  should  not 
from  the  first  have  remained  with  Pompey,  whatever  de 
cision  he  took,  and  afterward  have  sided  with  the  good, 
although  in  a  rashly  undertaken  struggle !  especially  when 
those  very  persons  for  whose  sake  I  hesitated  to  commit 
myself  to  fortune — my  wife,  my  daughter,  and  my  boys — 
wished  me  to  choose  the  one  part,  and  accounted  the  oth 
er  base  and  unworthy  of  me !  .  .  .  .  Two  things  deceived 
me  ;  first,  the  hopes  of  a  pacific  settlement,  after  which  I 
hoped  to  live  as  one  of  the  people,  that  my  old  age  might 
be  free  from  care  ;  secondly,  I  saw  that  Pompey  was  be 
ginning  a  cruel  and  murderous  war I  am  of  opin 
ion  that  it  would  be  better  to  die  than  to  live  with  these 
men." 

CaBsar  nevertheless  requested  an  interview  with  him, 
and  wrote  to  him  to  meet  him  at  Rome,  where  he  re 
quested  his  presence  in  the  name  of  the  public  safety. 

"I  will  gladly  follow  your  advice,  the  more  willingly 
that  I  had  already  of  my  own  accord  decided  to  act  with 
the  greatest  possible  leniency,  and  will  make  endeavors 
to  effect  a  reconciliation  with  Pompey.  Let  us  try  in  this 
way  whether  we  can  not  meet  the  desires  of  all,  and  en 
joy  a  lasting  victory,  since  others  have  not  been  able  to 
escape  hatred  in  consequence  of  their  cruelty,  or  to  retain 
the  fruits  of  their  success  for  any  length  of  time,  with  the 
exception  of  Lucius  Sylla,  whom  I  do  not  desire  to  imitate. 
Let  this  be  our  new  mode  of  triumph,  to  defend  ourselves 
by  mercy  and  liberality."* 

Not  content  with  these  overtures,  Csssar,  seeing  that 
Cicero  would  not  meet  him  at  Rome,  went  to  see  him  at 
his  house  at  Formiae,  on  his  return  from  Brundusium.  The 
*  Caesar's  Letter  to  Oppius  Cornelius,  A.U.C.  705. 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  393 

interview  was  formidable  for  Cicero,  who  had  to  guard  his 
virtue — for  Csesar,  who  had  to  justify  his  measures. 

"  I  wish  I  could  now  have  by  my  side  the  Homeric  Mi 
nerva  under  the  figure  of  Mentor,  that  I  might  say,  *  Men 
tor,  how  then  shall  I  approach,  how  shall  I  salute  him  V* 
I  never  studied  any  thing  more  difficult.  I  am  studying 
it  nevertheless,  and  shall  not  be  taken  by  surprise,  as  I  was 
by  my  misfortunes." 

Caesar  at  length  arrived,  surrounded  by  that  crowd  of 
unscrupulous  warriors  and  turbulent  men,  belonging  to  no 
country,  whose  only  refuge  is  in  tyranny  or  anarchy. 

"  Ye  gods!  what  a  company!"  Cicero  writes  the  day  af 
ter  this  scene.  "  What  a  charnel  house  !  as  you  used  to 
say,  with  such  a  crew  of  ruffians  !  Alas  !  for  the  Repub 
lic  !  Alas !  for  the  desperate  condition  of  our  forces ! 
What !  are  the  sons  of  Servius  and  of  Titinius  there  ? 
How  many  were  there  in  the  camp  (at  Brundusium)  by 
which  Pompey  was  besieged  ?  Six  legions." 

Csesar,  in  this  interview,  was  what  he  well  knew  how 
to  be,  when,  instead  of  giving  himself  up  to  ambition,  he 
gave  way  to  his  natural  disposition — the  most  amiable  and 
fascinating  of  the  Romans.  His  long  residence  in  Gaul 
had  given  him  something  of  the  ease,  recklessness,  and 
levity  of  the  Gauls,  treating  serious  things  in  a  light  way, 
playing  with  his  fortunes  as  he  would  with  one  of  his 
courtesans,  and  losing  or  winning  the  universe  as  careless 
ly  as  he  would  gamble  away  a  handful  of  coins  in  his 
tent ;  and,  while  liking  virtue  and  talent  as  two  intellect 
ual  pleasures  which  his  naturally  upright  and  elegant  mind 
made  him  appreciate,  he  had  an  equal  relish  for  the  vices 
and  debauchery  of  his  age,  through  which  he  triumphed 
over  his  country,  while  they,  in  return,  triumphed  over  him. 
In  Cicero's  presence  he  doubtless  blushed  at  his  escort ; 
but  he  neglected  none  of  his  persuasive  powers  to  win 
him  over  to  his  party,  or  at  least  to  retain  him  in  Italy. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Cicero  endeavored,  as  he  writes  in  the 
*  Homer's  Odyssey,  book  in.,  v.  22. 
R2 


394  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

letter  in  which  he  describes  his  interview,  to  prove  to  Cse- 
sar  that  honor,  duty,  and  friendship  required  him  to  join 
his  friends  beyond  the  sea. 

"  I  could  obtain  nothing.  He  persisted  that  my  resolu 
tion  would  appear  to  condemn  his  cause ;  that  if  I  did  not 
join,  the  others  would  hold  back.  I  said,  their  situation 
was  not  like  mine.  He  repeated,  Come,  then,  and  nego 
tiate  a  peace.  But  am  I  to  speak  as  I  like?  said  I.  Do 
you  think,  he  replied,  that  I  shall  prescribe  what  you  are 
to  say  ?  Well  (said  I),  I  shall  move  that  the  senate  does 
not  think  it  right  that  you  should  go  to  Spain,  or  that  the 
army  should  cross  over  to  Greece,  and  I  shall  lament  what 
has  happened  to  Pompey.  He  said,  It  will  not  suit  me  for 
you  to  speak  thus.  So  I  thought,  I  replied  ;  and  my  rea 
son  for  not  wishing  to  go  is,  that  I  must  either  say  these, 
and  many  other  things  respecting  which  I  can  not  be  si 
lent,  or  I  must  remain  here.  At  length  Caesar,  as  if  about 
to  go,  asked  me  to  reflect  on  it.  This  I  could  not  refuse, 
and  so  we  parted." 

"  I  think,"  says  Cicero,  after  describing  this  long  confer 
ence,  a  medley  of  familiarity,  jests,  and  sinister  hints,  "  I 
think  the  man  does  not  love  me.  But  I  have  pleased  my 
self,  and  that  has  not  often  happened  of  late.  His  conclu 
sion,  however,  which  I  had  almost  forgotten,  was  disagree 
able — that  if  he  could  not  obtain  my  advice  and  assistance, 
he  would  take  help  from  any  one  he  could  get,  and  would 
hesitate  at  nothing." 

The  dictatorship,  the  civil  war,  the  slaughter  of  citizens 
by  their  fellow-citizens,  the  death  of  Pompey,  the  suicide 
of  Cato,  the  murder  of  Cicero,  Cesar's  own  assassination, 
were  involved  in  this  threat.  Cicero  understood  it,  arid 
remained  inflexible,  preferring  to  face  the  vengeance  of 
tyranny  to  leaguing  with  the  tyrant. 

"  You  saw  THE  MAN,  then  ?  you  wrote  me  the  other 
day,  and,  of  course,  you  lamented  the  country's  ruin? 
Certainly.  What  next?  Why!  he  went  to  Pedanum  and 
I  to  Arpinum.  There  I  shall  wait  for  the  swallows" — 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  395 

that  is,  for  the  season  that  would  allow  of  his  crossing  the 
sea  to  join  Pompey  and  his  party,  whom  he  regretted  not 
having  followed  sooner. 

Caisar  returned  to  Rome  without  Cicero,  and  according 
ly  followed  the  path  of  violence  and  tyranny  instead  of  that 
of  wisdom  and  peace.  He  broke  open  the  gates  of  the 
temples,  where  religion  and  law  guarded  the  public  treas 
ures,  accumulated  for  centuries,  and  placed  in  trust  with 
the  gods  for  the  Republic's  hour  of  need.  The  bold  trib 
une  who  opposed  his  entrance  was  stabbed  by  his  gladia 
tors,  and  the  money  intended  for  the  necessities  of  the 
state  was  distributed  among  his  accomplices  and  soldiers. 
He  outraged  all  laws,  absorbed  all  powers,  took  command 
of  all  the  armies,  and  marched  without  delay  into  Spain, 
to  attack  or  seduce  the  legions  of  the  Republic.  He  for 
a  short  time  intrusted  Rome  and  Italy  to  Antony  and  Cu 
rio,  his  most  depraved  lieutenants  and  most  unscrupulous 
followers.  These  men,  at  Ceesar's  instigation,  continued 
to  tempt  Cicero's  virtue,  first  by  caresses,  and  then  by  men 
aces. 

"  You  may  be  sure,"  he  writes  to  his  friend  after  see 
ing  them,  "  that  there  is  not  a  bad  subject  in  Italy  who  is 

not  with  CsBsar Let  me  go,  therefore,  where  you 

wish,  and  leave  all Then,  I  was  full  of  hope  ; 

now,  I  have  none;  and,  except  myself,  no  one  has  left 
Italy  whom  Csesar  did^not  consider  an  enemy.  I  do  not 
indeed  do  this  for  the  sake  of  the  Republic,  which  I  be 
lieve  to  be  utterly  lost,  but  in  order  that  I  may  not  be 
thought  ungrateful  to  him  who  has  rescued  me  from  those 
very  misfortunes  of  which  he  himself  was  the  cause,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  because  I  can  not  bear  to  see  the  things 
which,  if  not  now  taking  place,  must  certainly  soon  occur. 
....  Csesar  is  hot  with  crime  and  anger  ;  nothing  es 
capes  him ;  and  he  gets  worse  from  day  to  day  .... 
he  no  longer  reposes,  but  rather  seems  to  expect  that  he 
should  be  called,  what  he  is,  a  tyrant.  The  other,  who 
said  he  could  do  nothing  against  Caesar's  wishes,  levies, 


396  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO 

by  land  and  sea,  a  war,  certainly  not  unjust,  but,  although 
proper  and  necessary,  yet  ruinous  to  the  citizens  if  he  is 
beaten,  and  destructive  to  them  if  he  is  victorious.  1  not 
only  do  not  place  the  achievements  of  these  two  surpass 
ing  generals  above  my  own,  but  not  even  their  fortune, 
while  theirs  is  flourishing,  and  I  am  in  adversity  ;  for  who 
can  be  happy  that  has  either  deserted  or  oppressed  his 
country?  And  if,  as  you  write,  the  books  say  truly,  that 
nothing  is  good  but  what  is  honorable,  nothing  evil  but 
what  is  base,  certainly  each  of  them  is  most  wretched. 

I  fully  satisfy  my  conscience  when  I  reflect  that 

I  have  served  as  well  as  I  possibly  could  the  Republic, 
or  at  least  that  all  I  have  done  to  her  has  been  in  the 
sight  of  the  gods :  the  Republic  has  been  overthrown  by 
the  very  danger  which  I  foresaw  fourteen  years  before.  I 
shall  set  out  with  the  consciousness  of  this. 

"  I  yesterday  asked  Curio,  Cassar's  lieutenant  who  came 
from  Arpinum  to  intimidate  or  persuade  me,  what  of  the 
Republic  ?  He  plainly  confessed  that  there  was  no  hope 
left.  There  is  an  end  of  it.  Csesar  will  either  be  ruined 
by  his  enemies,  or  ruin  himself,  for  he  is  his  own  worst 
foe.  I  hope  to  live  long  enough  to  see  this  !  As  for  me, 
I  must  think  of  the  life  to  come,  and  no  more  of  this  short 
and  fleeting  existence." 

CsBsar,  receiving  news  in  Spain  of  Cicero's  more  and 
more  decided  resolution  to  fly,  did  not  disdain  to  write  to 
him : 

"  Every  thing  seems  to  happen  most  fortunately  for  me, 
and  most  adversely  to  them.  Give  way  to  fortune.  Your 
leaving  me  now  Avould  appear  to  accuse  me  of  excesses 
which  I  have  never  committed.  What  is  more  befitting 
a  good  and  virtuous  citizen  than  to  isolate  himself  from 
civil  dissensions  ?" 

It  was  in  vain  that  Tullia,  his  daughter,  threw  herself 
at  his  feet  to  beg  him  this  time  not  to  join  a  ruined  cause. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Antony,  who  watched  him,  and  prowl 
ed  about  his  retreat  with  his  bands  of  lictors,  gladiators, 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  397 

comedians,  and  courtesans,  shut  out  the  sea.  He  suc 
ceeded  in  reaching,  unperceived,  a  country  house  which 
he  possessed  at  the  gates  of  Pompeii,  in  the  Bay  of  Naples. 

"There,"  he  writes  to  his  daughter,  speaking  of  the 
snares  and  debauchery  of  Marc  Antony,  "  there  is  the 
hand  by  which  I  am  to  perish  !"  as  if  he  had  a  presenti 
ment  of  the  man  who  was  one  day  to  order  his  death. 
"  No  !  if  I  should  be  unfortunate  enough  not  to  find  a  ship 
which  will  take  me  on  board,  I  would  push  off  in  the  first 
boat  to  escape  these  ruffians  !" 

The  following  night  he  escaped  Antony's  cohorts,  who 
were  already  watching  the  house,  and  embarked  in  a 
small  vessel  bound  to  Epirus,  hoping  for  the  future,  but 
unable  to  bear  the  present,  and,  as  he  himself  remarked 
on  quitting  the  shore,  deliberately,  and  with  his  eyes  open, 
rushing  headlong  to  his  ruin. 

He  took  with  him  his  son  and  brother,  both  of  them 
worthy  of  him  by  their  fidelity  to  him  in  his  misfortune, 
by  their  patriotism,  and  their  courage.  Although  poor, 
he  brought  Pompey  a  considerable  sum  of  money,  saved 
from  his  property,  as  a  voluntary  offering  to  the  cause  of 
justice,  liberty,  and  patriotism.  The  army  and  the  citi 
zens  received  him  as  a  pledge  of  the  justice  of  their  cause, 
and  a  sign  of  good  fortune  ;  they  boasted  that  they  would 
have  the  glory  of  Rome  with  them  for  the  future.  Cato 
alone,  who  believed  himself  to  be  too  rigidly  virtuous  to 
think  of  bending  to  circumstances,  but  who  did  not  exact 
such  strictness  from  others,  blamed  him  in  a  friendly  man 
ner  for  the  irreconcilable  breach  he  had  made  between 
himself  and  Caesar.  "Perhaps,"  he  remarked  to  him  in 
private,  "perhaps  you  would  have  been  more  useful  if 
you  had  remained  in  Rome,  observing  the  neutrality 
which  Caesar  required  of  you,  and  reserving  yourself  for 
an  opportunity  of  advancing  the  cause  of  the  Republic  in 
place  of  coming  here  to  face  useless  dangers."  Pompey 
received  him  graciously,  and  neglected  him  as  one  who 
had  not  declared  himself  at  first,  had  blamed  his  retreat 


398  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

to  Epirus,  had  conferred  with  Caesar,  brought  peaceful 
counsels  to  an  army,  and  was  too  great  in  the  Republic  to 
be  his  inferior  in  the  camp.  Cicero  withdrew  to  Dyrra- 
chium  with  Cato,  sick  with  grief  at  Pompey's  coldness  and 
inactivity. 

Shortly  after  Cicero's  arrival  in  Epirus,  Caesar,  having 
been  victorious  in  Spain,  and  having  crossed  Italy  quick 
ly,  taking  with  him  all  the  legions  he  found  ready  to  his 
hand,  crossed  the  sea,  and  came  to  attack  Pompey's  army 
with  inferior  forces,  but  with  that  promptitude  which,  in 
revolutions,  is  the  parent  of  success.  The  two  armies 
met  in  the  plain  of  the  Pharsalus,  in  Thessaly.  The 
troops  were  nearly  matched  in  numbers  and  in  valor,  and 
the  chiefs  in  fame  and  genius ;  but  Pompey  commanded 
citizens  whom  he  had  already  shaken  by  the  fault  he  had 
committed  in  leading  them  out  of  their  country,  as  if  de 
feated  before  the  battle  ;  Caesar  commanded  veteran  sol 
diers,  who  already  enjoyed  the  prestige  of  victory  through 
his  boldness  in  leading  them  as  conquerors,  less  to  engage 
than  to  pursue  the  enemy.  The  law,  the  consuls,  the 
senate,  the  magistrates,  the  pontiffs,  the  Roman  knights, 
the  patricians,  the  better  portion  even  of  the  plebeians — 
in  fact,  the  Republic  itself,  were  in  Pompey's  camp  :  the 
ambitious,  the  factious,  the  seditious,  the  corruptors  and 
the  corrupted,  the  youth  of  Rome,  the  populace  and  the 
soldiery,  and  even  the  barbarians  enrolled  in  Gaul,  were 
with  Caesar.  But  Caesar  commanded  soldiers  who  had 
every  thing  to  gain  in  giving  empire  to  Caesar ;  Pompey, 
on  the  other  hand,  headed  citizens  who  had  little  to  lose 
by  allowing  his  defeat.  Between  a  cause  served  by  all 
the  evil  passions  and  heroic  vices,  and  the  cause  of  an  ab 
stract  idea  defended  by  effeminate  virtues,  the  victory 
could  scarcely  be  doubtful.  Csesar  was  the  conqueror  ; 
Pharsalia  was  the  grave  of  liberty  and  of  the  Republic. 

Pompey,  in  his  old  age,  recovered,  in  'Epirus,  all  the 
ardor  and  military  genius  of  his  youth,  and  resumed,  with 
the  command  of  the  last  forces  of  his  country,  the  hardy 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  399 

exercises  of  the  infantry  soldier  and  of  the  cavalier,  the 
activity,  the  sobriety,  the  watches,  the  long  marches,  the 
use  of  the  sword  and  buckler,  to  set  an  example  to  the 
degenerate  youth  of  Rome  ;  yet,  with  all  this,  he  was  dis 
couraged  before  the  action,  and  joined  in  it  rather  as  if  it 
were  his  own  funeral  than  a  contest  of  which  he  himself 
was  the  life  and  soul.  He  had  given  battle  against  his 
own  judgment,  yielding  to  the  clamor  of  the  senators  and 
the  inexperienced  young  nobles  who  surrounded  and  over 
ruled  him  in  the  emigration  from  Rome.  He  wished  to 
wear  out  Caesar's  impetuosity  by  declining  to  fight.  They 
desired  to  meet  him  in  the  heat  of  his  attack,  and  before 
they  had  shown  themselves  worthy  of  contending  with 
him.  They  became  the  victims  of  their  own  impatience 
and  want  of  discipline. 

When  Pompey,  standing  still  on  an  eminence  in  the 
middle  of  his  army,  saw  the  cloud  of  dust  made  by  his 
cavalry  repulsed  by  Csesar's  veterans,  and  that  the  rout 
moved  toward  his  side,  as  his  young  horsemen  fled  he 
understood  his  fate,  and  did  not  seek  to  overcome  it  by  an 
obstinacy  which  he  probably  considered  hopeless.  He  re 
mained  for  a  moment,  say  those  who  saw  him,  motionless, 
as  if  thunderstruck  ;  then,  with  his  head  down,  and  with 
out  saying  a  word  to  his  officers,  he  walked  his  horse  to 
the  camp,  went  into  his  tent,  took  off  his  arms  and  his 
commander's  uniform,  and  putting  on  mourning  garments 
of  a  common  quality,  he  escaped  from  the  camp,  and,  al 
most  alone,  and  on  foot,  took  one  of  the  paths  leading  from 
the  heart  of  Thessaly  to  the  sea.  Overcome  with  fatigue 
and  thirst,  he  lay  down  on  the  ground  to  drink  from  the 
stream  which  flows  through  the  Vale  of  Tempe.  On  reach 
ing  the  sea-shore,  a  lone  fisherman's  hut  gave  shelter  for 
the  night  to  him  who,  in  the  course  of  forty  years,  had 
conquered  so  many  cities  of  Greece,  Asia,  Africa,  and 
Spain,  and  who,  but  a  few  hours  previously,  represented 
not  only  Rome  and  the  Republic,  but  the  world.  He  did 
not  weep,  as  a  man  unequal  to  the  greatness  of  his  mis- 


400  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

fortune,  nor  did  he  accuse  the  gods.  He  accepted  the  de 
cision  of  fortune,  doubtless  thinking  it  an  honorable  fate 
to  fall  with  the  laws  and  liberty  of  Rome.  He  sent  over 
to  Csesar  all  those  of  a  servile  condition  not  sufficiently 
engaged  in  his  quarrel  to  make  them  hopeless  of  an  easy 
pardon  from  the  conqueror :  he  kept  with  him  only  the 
free  citizens,  and,  embarking  in  the  fisher's  little  boat, 
stood  out  to  sea  in  search  of  some  vessels  in  which  he 
could  be  sheltered  from  the  waves. 

Just  at  that  moment,  the  pilot  of  a  ship  trading  on  the 
coast,  sitting  leisurely  at  midday  on  his  deck,  was  relating 
to  his  seamen  a  strange  dream  he  had  had  the  night  be 
fore.  Although  he  had  never  seen  the  great  Pompey,  the 
pilot  had  dreamed  he  saw  him,  not  in  the  splendid  and 
majestic  dress  in  which  he  pictured  so  august  a  citizen  to 
his  own  imagination,  but  in  common  clothes,  soiled  with 
dust,  and  torn  by  travel.  Pompey's  boat  just  then  clear 
ing  the  point  which  kept  it  out  of  sight  of  the  vessel,  the 
sailors  discovered  the  frail  craft :  they  pointed  it  out  to 
the  pilot,  telling  him  that  it  seemed  crowded  with  men 
making  signals  of  distress  by  raising  their  hands  and 
clothes  above  their  heads.  The  pilot,  who  was  called 
Pepicius,  arose  on  hearing  this,  looked  at  the  boat,  recog 
nized  in  Pompey  the  figure  he  had  seen  in  his  dream,  and, 
striking  his  forehead  with  both  hands  for  grief,  he  ordered 
his  companions  to  launch  the  ship's  boat,  went  away  with 
it  to  Pompey  himself,  heard  of  his  disaster,  handed  him 
respectfully  from  his  little  skiff,  and  took  him  and  his  suite 
on  board  his  vessel. 

The  pilot,  affected  at  the  sight  of  so  great  a  reverse,  and 
as  if  made  aware  of  his  duty  by  the  dream  the  gods  had 
sent  him,  prepared  with  his  own  hands  the  frugal  repast 
of  his  guests.  Favonius,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  cit 
izens  of  Rome,  seeing  Pompey  without  slaves,  undressed 
him  himself  for  the  bath,  and  anointed  him  with  oil  be 
fore  the  meal,  esteeming  it  an  honor  to  render  menial  ser 
vice  to  the  greatest  and  the  most  unfortunate  of  the  Ro- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  401 

mans,  and  not  thinking  it  a  humiliation  to  wash  his  feet 
and  prepare  his  food  daily.  The  noble  heart  ennobles  all 
actions,  observed  the  sailors  who  witnessed  this  voluntary 
service  ;  every  thing  is  befitting  to  a  great  mind,  even  to 
the  menial  service. of  a  friend. 

Pompey  desired  him  to  steer  for  Mitylene,  otherwise 
Lesbos,  which  lay  in  the  course  for  Egypt.  The  greatest 
of  his  misfortunes  and  of  his  consolations,  Cornelia,  await 
ed  him  in  that  island. 

After  the  death  of  Julia,  Csssar's  daughter  and  Pompey's 
first  wife,  he  had  married,  in  his  old  age,  the  beautiful 
Cornelia,  Scipio's  daughter  and  the  widow  of  Crassus,  a 
lady  as  celebrated  for  her  beauty,  genius,  and  virtue  as  on 
account  of  her  love  for  Pompey.  Cornelia  was  a  poetess, 
a  musician,  a  woman  of  letters,  a  philosopher,  and,  above 
all,  a  Eoman.  Her  virtues  equaled  her  charms,  and  the 
maturity  of  her  judgment  made  people  forget  her  youth. 
Pompey,  who  looked  upon  her  with  a  fatherly  as  well  as 
with  a  conjugal  affection,  had  left  her,  on  his  passage  to 
Epirus,  in  the  island  of  Mitylene,  to  be  out  of  reach  of 
any  annoyance  from  Csesar,  and  to  "be  near  the  scene  of 
war  without  being  exposed  to  any  of  its  fatigues  or  dan 
gers.  What  he  most  dreaded  at  this  moment  was,  not 
making  his  misfortune  known  to  the  world,  but  commu 
nicating  it  to  Cornelia. 

On  casting  anchor  by  night  in  the  roads  of  Lesbos,  he 
did  not  .venture  to  go  ashore  himself,  and  appear  in  his 
disgrace  before  his  wife  and  son.  One  of  the  companions 
of  his  flight  landed  alone,  and  asked  his  way  to  the  house 
of  Cornelia,  who,  from  a  false  report  that  had  crossed  the 
sea,  believed  that  her  husband  had  -won  a  great  victory. 
The  messenger,  whose  office  it  was  to  change  this  hope 
into  sorrow,  bowed  before  her  at  first  without  speaking, 
and,  bursting  into  tears,  gave  her  to  understand  that  he 
who  but  a  few  days  previously  was  master  of  an  army  and 
of  a  fleet  of  1500  sail,  now  only  waited  for  his  wife  and 
son  to  join  his  flight,  from  the  harbor  of  Mitylene,  on  board 


402  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

a  vessel,  in  which  the  pity  of  a  poor  pilot  had  afforded  him 
a  passage  and  hospitality. 

Cornelia  fainted  on  hearing  the  news.  On  recovering 
from  her  swoon,  she  ran  with  outstretched  hands  to  the 
shore,  and  threw  herself  into  the  arms  of  her  husband,  who 
had  landed  to  receive  her.  "Alas!"  she  .cried,  in  the 
midst  of  her  sobs,  and  taking  upon  herself,  by  an  admira 
ble  artifice  of  love,  all  the  misfortune  and  fault  of  her  hus 
band's  adversity,  "  alas  !  the  state  in  which  I  now  see  you 
is  the  work  of  my  evil  fate  and  not  of  yours.  You  are  now 
reduced  to  a  single  borrowed  vessel,  you  who,  before  you 
married  Cornelia,  swept  the  sea  with  1000  sail.  Why  did 
you  come  back  to  see  me  ?  Why  did  you  not  abandon 
me  to  my  wretched  fate  ?  for,  since  your  marriage,  I  have 
brought  you  nothing  but  reverses  and  disasters  ?  How 
much  better  it  would  have  been  if  I  had  died  before  hear 
ing  of  the  death  of  my  first  husband,  Crassus,  whom  the 
Parthians  slew !  or  how  much  wiser  I  should  have  been, 
if,  after  his  decease,  I  had  followed  him  to  the  grave,  as  I 
once  intended !  I  have  thus  only  lived  on  and  loved  the 
great  Pompey  to  bring  him  to  ruin !" 

But  Pompey  comforted  her  with  caresses,  and  raised 
her  to  all  the  firmness  of  her  Roman  pride.  "  Cornelia," 
he  said,  "  you  weep  because  with  me  you  have  only  known 
prosperity ;  and  it  is  this  very  prosperity  which  deceives 
and  astonishes  you  in  our  present  reverse,  since  fortune 
has  been  longer  faithful  to  me  than  to  any  other  of  her 
favorites.  But,  as  we  are  mortals,  we  must  bear  her  vi 
cissitudes,  and  try  her  again  boldly  ;  for  as  from  my  late 
greatness  I  have  fallen  into  my  present  humiliation,  so  it 
is  not  impossible  that  from  my  present  humiliation  I  may 
rise  to  more  than  my  former  greatness."  A  friend  of  Cor 
nelia,  a  Greek  philosopher  of  Lesbos,  who  happened  to  be 
present,  conversed  with  Pompey  for  a  few  moments  on 
Providence,  whom  the  defeated  general  was  disposed  to 
accuse  of  injustice  in  allowing  right  to  be  overcome  by 
might.  "  This  Providence,"  says  Plutarch,  "  was  the  vices 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  403 

of  the  Roman  people,  who  had  become  incapable  of  any 
longer  keeping  up  the  Republic,  and  were  hastening  to 
punish  themselves  by  crowning  tyranny." 

They  sailed  for  Egypt,  which  Pompey  considered  the 
only  faithful  and  safe  refuge,  because  it  was  there  that  he 
had  himself  formerly  crowned  the  father  of  the  young 
king  then  upon  the  throne.  This  monarch  was  Ptolemy, 
the°brother  of  Cleopatra,  the  most  celebrated  of  queens 
and  women — by  her  beauty,  her  genius,  and  her  amours 

which  made  the  greatest  men  of  her  time,  Caesar  and 

Antony,  whose  plaything  was  the  world,  the  sport  of  her 
caprice. 

Some  vessels,  filled  with  his  partisans,  and  with  Roman 
soldiers  picked  up  at  sea  or  on  the  coast  of  Ionia  and  Cy 
prus,  followed  Pompey's  galley  as  it  approached  the  shores 
of  Egypt.  No  one  on  board  this  squadron  doubted  that 
their  great  leader  would  be  received  as  the  most  illustri 
ous  of  the  Romans,  and  the  benefactor  of  the  Ptolemsean 
dynasty.  They  hoped  that  with  the  help  of  the  treasures 
and  troops  of  Egypt,  he  would  rally  round  him  all  the 
Roman  legions  of  Africa,  and  win  back  fortune,  shaming 
her  for  having  for  a  time  abandoned  the  cause  of  men, 
laws,  and  gods,  Cornelia  herself  joined  in  inspiring  him 
with  these  expectations. 

The  ministers,  however,  of  the  young  King  of  Egypt, 
whose  extreme  youth  subjected  him  to  the  authority  of  his 
cabinet,  having  received,  by  a  fast-sailing  vessel,  the  news 
of  Pharsalia,  and,  by  another,  the  approach  of  Pompey  with 
his  fleet,  deliberated  upon  the  policy  they  should  adopt 
with  a  guest  so  embarrassing  now  that  he  was  conquered. 
A  rhetorician  named  Theodorus,  of  Chios — one  of  that 
mercenary  race  which  creeps  into  the  councils  of  princes 
and  nations  to  suggest  vile  craft  under  the  name  of  policy, 
and  to  represent  useful  crimes  as  acts  of  genius  and  vir 
tue—settled  the  question.  "If  you  receive  the  great 
Pompey,"  he  said  to  the  Egyptian  ministry,  "  you  will  have 
two  evils  at  once — Caesar  for  an  enemy,  and  Pompey  for 


404  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

a  master.  If  you  refuse  him  hospitality,  and  he  should 
ever  again  become  powerful,  you  will  have  to  fear  not 
only  his  vengeance  for  the  affront  that  you  will  have  offer 
ed  him,  but  also  the  anger  of  Caesar  for  the  danger  you 
will  have  made  him  incur  by  not  giving  his  enemy  up  to 
him.  There  is,  therefore,  but  one  thing  to  do,"  he  contin 
ued,  with  perverse  malignity,  "  that  is,  to  receive  him,  and 
to  put  him  to  death  on  the  shore  ;  you  will  thus  secretly 
gratify  Caesar  by  ridding  him  of  a  rival,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  will  have  nothing  to  dread  from  the  vengeance 
of  Pompey,  because,"  he  added,  smiling,  and  inventing 
an  apophthegm  which  has  since  become  the  murderer's 
proverb,  "  Dead  dogs  do  not  bite." 

Photinus  and  Achillas,  two  favorite  slaves,  who,  with 
Theodorus,  ruled  the  council  which  governed  Egypt,  ap 
plauded  this  advice.  Achillas  himself  was  charged  with 
its  execution.  He  went  in  a  boat  with  two  Roman  offi 
cers, -formerly  centurions  in  Pompey 's  army — one  named 
Septimius,  and  the  other  Salvius — and  some  Egyptian  cut 
throats,  and  pulled  out  to  meet  Pompey's  galley.  Cornelia 
and  the  friends  of  this  great  man,  seeing,  in  place  of  the 
honorable  reception  and  escort  that  they  had  expected,  a 
miserable  boat,  with  only  seven  armed  men  in  it,  pulling 
for  their  galley,  augured  ill  from  such  an  ignoble  recep 
tion  to  one  who  had  been  the  master  of  Egypt  and  of  the 
world.  They  suspected  some  sinister  design,  and  begged 
Pompey  not  to  trust  himself  to  such  an  ungrateful  or  doubt 
ful  shore.  But  it  was  already  too  late  for  deliberation. 
Crowds  of  armed  men  were  seen  gathering  on  the  shore, 
and  galleys  full  of  troops  were  getting  under  weigh  to  sur 
round  Pompey's  squadron. 

The  boat  having  at  length  reached  the  vessel,  Septimi 
us,  one  of  the  Romans,  rose  and  saluted  his  old  command 
er  by  the  accustomed  title  of  Imperator,  as  if  to  convince 
him  that  his  defeat  had  not  lowered  him  in  the  estimation 
of  his  soldiers  in  Egypt.  Achillas  saluted  him  in  Greek, 
and  invited  him  down  into  the  boat,  under  the  pretense 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  405 

of  the  difficulty  of  crossing  the  basin  in  a  large  vessel. 
Cornelia,  half  dead  with  the  forebodings  of  love,  which 
reveal  to  a  woman's  heart  the  dangers  which  threaten  the 
object  of  her  affection,  in  vain  clasped  her  husband's 
knees  to  retain  him.  He  embraced  her  affectionately 
while  loosing  himself  from  her  hold  ;  and  leaving  her  al 
most  fainting  on  the  deck,  w.erit  down  into  the  boat,  rest 
ing  on  the  hand  of  Achillas.  Then,  turning  back  for  the 
last  time  to  look  upon  his  wife  and  son,  and  no  longer 
doubting  his  destiny,  he  addressed  them  a  sad  farewell  in 
the  words  of  Sophocles,  "  Every  one  that  enters  the  court 
of  a  tyrant  becomes  a  slave,  even  though  he  enters  it  a 
freeman." 

While  the  boat  was  crossing  the  broad  lagoon  which 
separated  the  galley  from  the  shore,  a  sinister  and  embar- 
rasing  silence  closed  the  lips  of  the  Greeks  and  Egyptians. 
Pompey,  as  if  to  discover  its  meaning,  and  to  ascertain 
the  feelings  of  his  hosts  by  their  words,  addressed  himself 
to  Septimius,  and  asked  him  if  he  was  mistaken  in  sup 
posing  that  he  recognized  him  as  having  formerly  served 
under  his  command.  Septimius,  without  altering  a  feat 
ure,  or  answering  otherwise  than  by  a  gesture,  bowed  his 
head,  as  a  disdainful  intimation  that  it  was  so.  The  si 
lence  continuing,  Pompey,  to  preserve  the  appearance  of 
self-possession,  opened  his  tablets,  and  began  looking  over 
a  harangue  in  Greek,  which  he  had  prepared  during  his 
voyage,  as  an  address  to  Ptolemy  on  landing. 

Cornelia,  recalled  to  life  by  anxiety  for  the  fate  which 
awaited  her  husband  on  the  shore,  was  looking  from  the 
galley's  deck  at  the  boat,  now  just  landing.  She  began  to 
be  reassured  and  to  rejoice  on  seeing  a  crowd  of  courtiers, 
richly  dressed,  come  down  to  the  water's  edge,  as  if  to  do 
honor  and  form  an  escort  to  the  guest  of  Egypt ;  and  she 
was  already  returning  thanks  to  the  gods  for  his  safety. 
At  this  moment  the  boat  touched  ground,  and  while  Pom 
pey  was  taking  the  hand  of  Philip,  his  freedman,  to  rise 
from  his  seat  and  step  on  shore,  Septimius,  as  if  he  did 


406  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

not  dare  to  strike  so  great  a  victim  in  front,  thrust  his 
sword  into  his  body  from  behind.  Salvius  and  Achillas 
joined,  and  also  ran  him  through  with  their  weapons. 
Pompey,  without  endeavoring  to  defend  himself,  and  not 
even  appearing  astonished,  wrapped  his  face  in  the  folds 
of  his  toga,  as  if  to  hide  any  unbecoming  expression  of 
pain  from  the  lookers-on,  and/alling  thus  enveloped  at  the 
feet  of  his  assassins,  died  without  any  complaint  to  the 
gods,  or  any  farewell  to  life  beyond  a  gentle  moan. 

On  seeing  the  sunlight  flash  on  the  swords,  and  Pompey 
fall  from  the  boat,  Cornelia  fell  fainting,  with  her  arms 
stretched  toward  her  husband,  as  if  endeavoring  at  such  a 
distance  to  avert  the  blow.  The  crew  of  the  galley,  fright 
ened,  pulled  away  hard,  and  carried  her  out,  half  dead,  to 
the  open  sea. 

Septimius,  Salvius,  Achillas,  and  their  slaves,  having  cut 
off  Pompey's  head  to  carry  it  to  Ptolemy,  to  be  presented 
as  a  tribute  to  Caesar,  threw  his  body  out  of  the  boat,  and 
left  it  on  the  sand,  a  prey  to  the  vultures  and  the  wild 
sea's  foam.  The  fishermen  and  the  populace  amused 
themselves  all  day  by  gazing  on  the  corpse.  When  night 
came,  and  the  shore  was  deserted,  Pompey's  freedman, 
Philip,  who  had  never  abandoned  the  remains,  washed 
them  piously  in  the  sea,  and  wrapped  them  in  his  own 
shirt,  which  he  took  off  to  serve  as  a  shroud  for  his  mas 
ter.  Then,  looking  all  along  the  coast  for  fragments  of 
wreck  cast  up  by  the  waves,  and  gathering  them  one  by 
one,  to  raise  a  pile  on  which  to  burn  the  body,  according 
to  the  usage  of  the  ancients,  he  with  difficulty  succeeded 
in  collecting  a  small  heap  of  drift-wood,  barely  sufficient 
to  consume  a  naked,  emaciated,  and  bloodless  corpse,  not 
even  entire. 

"While  this  faithful  servant  was  occupied  in  wandering 
along  the  beach  to  collect  the  planks  of  vessels  wrecked 
like  his  master,  a  Roman  veteran,  an  old  soldier  of  Pom 
pey's,  who  had  retired  to  Egypt,  and  was  passing  accident 
ally  along  this  desert  shore,  addressed  Philip,  and  asked 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  407 

him  what  he  was  doing  at  that  hour  of  night  on  the  sea 
shore.  "  I  am  the  freedman  of  Pompey,  and  I  am  prepar 
ing  his  funeral  pile,"  was  Philip's  answer.  The  old  soldier 
lift'ed  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  lamenting  over  this  sight 
of  the  master  of  the  world,  buried  by  stealth,  and  in  dark 
ness,  by  a  solitary  slave,  on  a  foreign  shore,  "Ah!"  he 
said  to  the  freedman,  "  it  shall  not  be  said  that  you  had 
this  task  alone  !  Allow  me  to  join  you  in  this  last  duty, 
as  a  sacred  and  holy  task  offered  to  my  old  age  by  Prov 
idence,  which  has  confined  me  for  so  many  years  to  this 
fatal  and  ungrateful  land,  reserving  for  me  at  length,  after 
so  many  misfortunes,  the  sad  consolation  of  touching  with 
my  own  hands  the  mortal  remains,  and  performing  the  ob 
sequies,  of  the  greatest  of  the  Romans!" 

The  flame  of  the  pyre  lighted  by  these  two  pious  men 
burned  until  day.  The  next  morning,  Lentulus,  one  of  the 
friends  and  lieutenants  of  Pompey,  arriving  from  Cyprus, 
and  sailing  along  the  shore,  without  knowing  any  thing 
of  the  murder  of  the  previous  day,  perceived  from  his  gal 
ley  the  last  flicker  of  the  funeral  pile  contending  with  the 
first  gleams  of  dawn  by  the  edge  of  the  waves.  "  Alas  !" 
said  he  to  his  companions,  "  who  is  this  that  has  come  here 
to  his  last  rest  from  his  long  journey,  yielding  up  his  dust 
to  its  ultimate  elements  in  such  a  desert  spot?"  Then, as 
if  with  a  prophetic  boding,  he  added,  thinking  of  the  vi 
cissitudes  and  cruel  scorn  of  fortune,  "  Alas  !  alas  !  perhaps 
it  is  thou,  great  Pompey  !" 

It  was  Pompey. 

During  these  events,  Cicero,  living  in  retirement  with 
Cato  in  a  small  Grecian  port  near  Pharsalia,  was  watching 
in  silence  and  consternation  the  ruin  of  the  Republic. 

A  great  poet,  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  great  states 
man,  but,  unfortunately  for  his  fame,  carried  his  love  of 
liberty  to  fanaticism,  and  his  republicanism  to  regicide — 
MILTON — has  written  as  follows  : 

"If  God  has   ever  implanted  a   strong  love  of  moral 


408  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

beauty  in  the  breast  of  any  human  being,  he  has  implanted 
it  in  mine.  Wherever  I  meet  a  man  despising  the  false 
esteem  of  the  vulgar,  and  venturing  to  aspire  in  thought, 
in  language,  and  in  conduct  to  all  that  the  wisdom  of  ages 
has  taught  us  of  most  excellent,  to  him  by  a  sort  of  neces 
sary  attraction  I  am  drawn.  No  power  in  earth  or  in 
heaven  can  prevent  me  from  regarding  with  respect  and 
affection  those  who  have  attained  the  highest  dignity  of 
mind,  intellect,  and  virtue." 

This  gratified  love  of  moral  beauty  in  a  historical  person 
age — this  respect  and  affection  for  those  who  have  reached  the 
highest  dignity  of  character  and  virtue — have  sustained  us 
up  to  this  point  in  Cicero's  life  ;  they  will  be  overshadow 
ed  and  darkened  a  little  while  we  are  recalling,  not  his 
crimes  (there  -are  none  in  his  life),  but  a  few  inequalities 
and  weaknesses.  After  the  fall  of  the  Republic,  he  is  less 
constantly  admirable ;  but  to  those  who  love  to  contem 
plate  in  man  the  struggle  of  human  weakness  with  virtue, 
and  the  alternating  triumphs  of  duty  and  passion  in  the 
mind,  he  becomes,  perhaps,  more  interesting.  Consistent 
characters,  like  that  of  Cato,  have  something  superhuman 
and  inflexible  about  them,  more  instructive,  but  less  in 
teresting  than  characters  less  under  their  own  control, 
bending  to  circumstances  and  then  rising  again,  like  that 
of  Cicero.  It  is  with  man  as  it  is  with  landscapes  :  a 
straight  horizon  is  no  doubt  the  purest,  geometrically  and 
logically  ;  but  a  waving  horizon,  with  alternate  elevations 
and  depressions,  lifting  our  eyes  to  heaven  after  bringing 
them  down  to  the  earth,  interest  and  charm  both  the  paint 
er  and  the  spectator.  Nature,  the  philosophers  say,  has 
made  man  a  fluctuating  and  varying  being.  Considered 
in  this  light,  he  is  undoubtedly  less  imposing,  but  he  in 
terests  us  the  more  in  proportion  as  he  is  more  human. 

Cicero  was  purely  so  after  the  death  of  Pompey.  The 
Republic  expired  with  this  greatest  and  last  of  its  citizens, 
and  its  remains  became  the  almost  undisputed  prey  of 
Csesar.  The  right  having  fallen  at  Pharsalia.  might  had 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  499 

become  every  thing.  Caesar  held  the  might,  obtaining  it, 
as  the  great  corrupter  of  his  country,  not  from  the  virtues 
of  a  few,  but  from  the  vices  of  a  multitude,  which,  feeling 
itself  worthy  of  slavery,  demanded  a  master. 

With  the  promptness  that  surprises  and  fixes  destiny, 
Caesar,  after  his  victory,  flew  to  Spain,  Africa,  and  Egypt, 
to  strike  sudden  and  unexpected  blows  at  the  sons  and 
lieutenants  of  Pompey,  to  seize  their  legions,  and  to  mas 
ter  in  all  the  scattered  members  of  the  Roman  power  the 
liberty  that  he  wished  to  destroy,  and  the  empire  that  he 
intended  to  found. 

Cicero,  in  place  of  following  Cato's  example  of  protest 
ing  against  the  victory  and  dying  with  the  liberty  of  his 
country,  appeared  to  repent,  not  so  much  the  defeat  of  the 
great  Pompey  and  of  the  Republic,  as  his  having,  impru 
dently  and  too  late,  espoused  the  cause  overthrown  by  the 
gods.  He  began  by  reconciling  himself  with  the  tyrant, 
and  almost  asking  the  conqueror's  pardon  for  his  virtue. 
Nothing  was  easier  than  to  obtain  this.  Caesar's  crimes 
were  great  and  gentle  as  his  genius.  He  was  too  high  to 
be  vindictive ;  and  he  was,  at  the  same  time,  too  politic 
not  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  appearing  to  the  Roman 
people  to  be  accepted  and  even  forgiven  by  a  man  like 
Cicero,  who  was  then  almost  the  sole  representative  of 
literature,  eloquence,  moral  influence  in  the  senate,  gen 
eral  esteem,  and,  in  a  word,  of  all  that  would  now  be 
called  popular  opinion  in  Rome.  Moreover,  Caesar  liked 
Cicero,  from  that  mutual  and  involuntary  attraction  which 
attaches  all  great  intellects  to  what  resembles  themselves. 
He  had  too  much  genius  to  be  insensible  to  genius,  too 
much  glory  of  his  own  to  envy  another's.  Cicero  appear 
ed  to  him  one  of  the  most  brilliant  ornaments  of  humanity 
in  his  century  :  he  was  more  proud  of  reigning  over  one 
such  man  as  Cicero,  than  over  all  the  common  herd  of 
people  and  soldiery  who  worshiped  his  fortune.  He  was 
even  disposed  to  allow  Cicero  to  come  over  to  him  with 
dignity,  and  to  retain  the  independence  of  his  opinions. 

Vor..  T  —  S 


410  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

He  did  not  ask  him  to  abase  himself,  but  simply  to  sub 
mit. 

Negotiations  were  opened  on  this  footing,  by  mutual 
friends,  between  Cicero  and  Caesar.  They  experienced  no 
further  delay  than  what  was  caused  by  the  distance  be 
tween  these  two  great  Romans.  Cicero  crossed  the  sea 
which  separates  Epirus  from  Italy,  and  landed  with  some 
hesitation  at  BrundusHum,  the  port  which  he  had  quitted 
so  short  a  time  before  to  join  Pompey.  He  there  em 
braced  his  daughter  Tullia,  the  most  affectionate,  the  most 
illustrious,  and  most  learned  of  the  Roman  ladies  of  her 
time.  The  mutual  fondness  of  father  and  daughter  was 
increased  by  mutual  adversity.  Separated  from  her  hus 
band,  who  was  unworthy  of  her,  Tullia  had  now  only  her 
father  :  dissatisfied  with  his  cold  and  ambitious  wife,  Cic 
ero  had  only  his  daughter.  They  wept  together  over  their 
own  woes  and  the  misfortunes  of  their  country.  Cicero's 
brother,  Caius  Gluintus,  whom  he  had  loved  as  himself, 
had  not  had  the  discretion  to  save  appearances  in  his  tran 
sition  from  one  side  to  the  other.  Pressed  by  meanness 
or  fear,  he  hastened  to  Africa  with  his  son,  Cicero's  neph 
ew,  to  implore  Csesar's  favor,  and  to  cast  on  his  brother 
the  blame  of  his  having  taken  part  with  Pompey.  Csesar 
was  indignant  at  this  baseness,  and  wrote  to  Cicero  to  ac 
quaint  him  with  it.  He,  with  fraternal  generosity,  an 
swered  Csesar  by  taking  all  the  blame  on  himself,  and  beg 
ging  the  dictator  to  pardon  his  brother's  error. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  fortune,  already  embarrassed  by 
his  departure  from  Italy,  had  at  last  become-  involved  even 
to  indigence  by  his  wife's  malversation,  his  own  absence, 
and  the  destruction  of  farming  produce  caused  by  the  civil 
wars  and  continual  spoliation  of  Italy.  He  only  lived  upon 
loans  and  gifts  from  his  friends,  principally  from  Atticus. 
Antony,  Caesar's  lieutenant  in  Rome,  had  just  published  an 
edict  banishing  from  Italy  all  the  followers  of  Pompey  ex 
cept  Cicero.  This  exception  by  name,  which  allowed  him 
to  return  to  Rome,  gave  him  joy  in  one  sense  and  humili- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 


411 


ation  in  another ;  for  Pompey's  partisans,  who  had  been 
beaten  at  Pharsalia,  had  gone  over  to  Africa  to  renew  their 
resistance  to  the  tyrant.  Report  magnified  their  strength, 
and  they  threatened  to  anticipate  Caesar's  return  to  Italy, 
and  to  restore  the  Republic.  The  success  of  his  own 
cause,  after  he  thought  it  crushed,  troubled  Cicero,  for  the 
victorious  Republicans  might  now  consider  him  a  desert 
er,  while  Caesar's  courtiers  looked  upon  him  as  a  Repub 
lican  ;  so  that,  from  the  vacillation  of  his  character,  and 
from  the  rapid  alternations  of  his  submission  to  each  par 
ty,  both  disavowed  and  threatened  him  with  the  same 
vengeance,  contempt  being  the  least  he  could  expect  from 
either — a  sad  situation  for  a  great  mind,  which,  instead 
of  depending  upon  conscience,  waited  upon  fortune,  and 
fell  without  honor,  as  it  had  chosen  without  virtue. 

He  had  even  at  Brundusium  felt  remorse  at  his  doubt 
ful  position  as  regarded  public  opinion,  which  was  turning 
against  him.  He  either  dared  not  or  could  not  excuse  him 
self,  and  he  begged  his  old  friend  Atticus  to  write  his  jus 
tification  in  order  to  bring  back  a  few  friends. 

He  at  length  proceeded  to  the  neighborhood  of  Rome 
with  his  daughter,  but  without  venturing  into  the  city. 
He  then  repaired  to  meet  Caesar,  who  had  just  landed  vic 
torious  at  Tarentum,  and  was  coming  back  to  triumph  at 
Rome.  The  orator  who  had  not  trembled  before  the  bra- 
voes  of  Catiline,  now  shook  before  the  frown  on  the  brow 
or  the  curled  lip  of  a  master.  His  letters  at  this  date  ex 
press  the  cowardice  of  a  base  mind.  "  How  will  he  re 
ceive  me  ?  How  will  he  look  upon  me  ?  What  will  he 
say  to  me  ?  and  will  he  listen  to  me  ?"  A  nation,  of  which 
the  most  virtuous  citizens  feel  and  give  utterance  to  such 
fears,  is  ripe  for  tyranny.  He  was,  however,  mistaken  in 
his  idea  of  Caesar's  reception.  Tyrants  are  as  happy  to 
meet  with  submissive  spirits,  as  these  spirits  are  anxious 
to  bow  down  to  tyrants.  As  soon  as  Ca3sar  saw  Cicero, 
on  his  return  from  Tarentum  to  Rome,  he  dismounted 
from  his  horse,  ran  to  him  with  open  arms,  embraced  him 


412  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

as  a  long-lost  friend,  uttered  no  reproaches,  but  taking  him 
forward  and  at  a  distance  from  his  escort,  to  spare  his 
shame  and  as  a  token  of  confidence,  he  chatted  long  and 
familiarly  with  him  in  sight  of  his  whole  army.  It  is  not 
known  what  these  adversaries  said  to  each  other  on  their 
reconciliation  :  one  probably  excused  his  tyranny  on  the 
ground  of  human  baseness  ;  the  other  attributed  to  the 
fickleness  of  fortune  the  obedience  which  he  came  to  ofler. 
However,  if  we  can  trust  an  expression  of  Cicero  in  writ 
ing  to  Atticus  after  this  interview,  resignation  was  not 
without  grandeur  and  dignity  in  his  mouth  ;  "  for,"  says 
he,  "  I  hardly  knew  if  it  was  worth  while  to  beg  of  Cee- 
sar  a  life  which  ceases  to  belong  to  Rome  from  the  day 
it  is  acknowledged  as  the  gift  of  a  master." 

Caosar  pursued  his  journey  toward  Rome,  where  he  re 
ceived  all  the  authority  under  all  the  titles  that  he  deign 
ed  to  demand.  He  again  departed  for  Africa,  leaving  be 
hind  him  proconsuls  to  govern  Rome,  especially  Antony, 
the  most  soldier-like,  the  most  servile,  and  most  shame 
less  of  his  adherents ;  as  if  Caesar  had  taken  care  to  ap 
point  the  man  who  would  make  his  absence  the  most 
felt,  or  as  if  he  had  desired  to  show  his  contempt  for  the 
people  by  permitting  them  to  be  ruled,  while  he  was  else 
where,  by  the  coarsest  and  most  contemptible  of  his  sol 
diers.  Cicero  shut  himself  up  with  his  books  in  his  coun 
try  house  at  Tusculum,  by  the  woods,  at  the  foot  and  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Alban  Mount,  a  poetical  and  philosophic 
retreat,  from  which  his  eyes  could  rest,  on  one  side  on  the 
wilderness,  and  on  the  other  on  the  smoke  of  the  city  and 
distant  roofs  of  Rome.  "We  have  ourselves  often  visited 
the  ruins  still  standing  of  his  villa,  his  library,  his  fount 
ains,  and  his  gardens,  where  we  may  inhale  the  great 
ness,  the  sadness,  and,  in  some  measure,  the  historic  spirit 
which  he  himself  once  breathed.  He  enjoyed  his  return, 
to  his  country  in  peace  and  safety ;  but  he  had  paid  too 
dearly  for  it,  having  left  liberty  and  dignity  on  the  shore 
from  whence  he  departed. 


MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO.  4^3 

"While  Cicero  was  seeking  relief  and  consolation  in  study, 
and  was  receiving  the  visits  of  the  most  learned  and  eru 
dite  of  the  Romans,  who  came  to  admire  and  enjoy  in  him, 
if  not  greatness  of  character,  at  least  the  immensity  and 
variety  of  genius,  Caesar  had  conquered  Pompey's  sons  and 
the  old  Republicans  in  Spain.  Cato  had  killed  himself, 
from  that  other  species  of  weakness  which  can  not  bear 
the  life  to  which  we  are  condemned  by  Providence,  or  by 
the  scorn  of  mankind.  Csesar  now  reigned  under  the  title 
of  Perpetual  Dictator,  and  was  preparing  to  undertake  the 
conquest  of  the  Parthians  in  Asia.  He  thus  endeavored 
to  give  brilliancy  to  his  usurpation  by  the  splendor  and 
gentleness  of  his  government ;  he  managed  the  senate, 
bought  the  plebeians,  satisfied  the  legions,  and  by  his  fas 
cination  and  clemency  corrupted  all  that  remained  of  lib 
erty  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  Cicero,  while  loudly  com 
plaining  of  this  prostration  of  his  country,  shared  the  gen 
eral  submissiveness  more  than  befitted  a  surviving  leader 
of  the  Republic,  and  the  friend  of  Pompey  and  Cato.  He 
sometimes  harangued  the  senate  :  he  proposed  measures 
agreeable  to  his  master  ;  he  pleaded  before  him  on  behalf 
of  political  prisoners,  and  suggested  opportunities  of  gen 
erosity.  He  praised  him  with  that  independence  of  lan 
guage  which  places  the  flattery  in  the  idea,  not  in  the 
words :  he  affected  to  defend  Cato's  memory  and  Pompey's 
glory  ;  he  said  of  Csesar,  with  a  view  to  its  being  repeated 
to  him,  that  "  by  restoring  Pompey's  statues  he  had  estab 
lished  his  own  the  more  firmly."  He  pleaded  before  him 
in  order  to  give  him  the  enjoyment  of  eloquence  as  an  ar 
tistic  display  of  his  oratory,  and  won  from  him  the  acquit 
tal  of  a  criminal  whom  he  had  already  decided  to  con 
demn.  He  even  received  Caesar's  visits  as  a  pledge  of 
personal  security  and  a  guarantee  of  exceptional  protec 
tion  from  the  oppressor  of  his  country,  and  it  was  with  a 
secret  pleasure  that  he  related  the  particulars  of  these 
visits  in  his  letters  to  his  friends. 

"What  a  guest  I  received!  and  yet  I  need  not  have 


414  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

feared  him,  for  he  was  charming ;  for  when  he  came  to 
Philip  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day  of  the  Saturnalia, 
the  villa  was  so  full  of  soldiers  that  even  the  room  where 
Caesar  supped  could  scarcely  be  kept  clear.  He  had  at 
least  two  thousand  men  with  him.  I  certainly  was  doubt 
ful  how  I  should  get  through  next  day,  but  Barba  Cassius 
came  to  the  rescue  and  gave  me  a  guard.  They  encamp 
ed  outside  ;  the  villa  was  prohibited.  On  the  third  morn 
ing  of  the  Saturnalia,  he  remained  with  Philip  until  the 
middle  of  the  day,  without  admitting  any  one,  settling,  as 
1  imagine,  accounts  with  Balbus.  He  then  took  a  walk 
on  the  beach.  At  two  o'clock  he  bathed,  and  heard  the 
satire  on  Mamurra  read  to  him,  never  changing  his  coun 
tenance.  He  then  was  perfumed  and  sat  down  to  dinner. 
He  ate  and  drank  sufficiently  and  with  satisfaction,  and 
talked  agreeably.  The  friends  who  were  with  him  were 
served  splendidly  at  three  tables.  The  inferior  freedmen 
and  the  slaves  were  well  treated,  the  better  class  being 
capitally  served.  In  fact,  I  came  out  of  the  affair  well. 
But,  to  tell  the  truth,  he  is  not  one  to  whom  I  could  say, 
'  Come  again  whenever  you  like.'  Once  is  enough.  We 
talked  no  politics,  but  much  upon  literary  subjects.  He 
was  pleased,  and  remained  willingly.  He  said  he  should 
stay  one  day  at  Puteoli,  and  go  on  to  Baise  the  next.  Such 
was  the  visit  or  call,  somewhat  troublesome,  but  not  seri 
ously  inconvenient." 

Thus  Csesar  made  his  condescension  an  excuse  for  his 
tyranny,  and  Cicero  his  complaisance  an  apology  for  his 
longings  for  the  liberty  he  had  lost.  About  this  time,  al 
though  he  had  already  completed  the  sixtieth  year  of  his 
age,  he  divorced  his  first  wife  Terentia,  who  had  neglect 
ed  him  in  his  adversity,  and  married  one  of  his  wards,  a 
very  young,  beautiful,  and  rich  orphan,  confided  to  his  care 
by  her  dying  father.  Enchanted  with  the  genius  and  re 
nown  of  this  her  second  parent,  the  young  Roman  heiress 
loved  him  and  was  beloved  in  return  with  an  affection 
that  effaced  the  difference  of  their  ages,  These  were  not 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  415 

the  most  glorious,  but  the  most  serious  years  of  his  life, 
and  the  most  fruitful  in  events.  They  were,  however, 
short.  Death  having  soon  afterward  robbed  him  of  the 
pride  and  delight  of  his  heart,  his  daughter  Tullia,  he  was 
so  afflicted  thereby  that  he  took  offense  at  his  young  wife 
(doubtless  jealous  of  not  being  the  sole  object  of  his  affec 
tion)  for  not  sufficiently  sharing  his  grief;  he  left  her,  and 
shut  himself  up  in  solitude  with  his  sorrow  and  his  genius. 
It  was  then  that  he  wrote,  without  relaxation  or  weari 
ness  of  spirit,  those  admirable  books,  of  which  every  frag 
ment  is  a  finished  monument  of  wisdom,  mature  judgment, 
science,  universality,  and  style.  If  history  were  lost,  the 
ancient  civilization  might  be  entirely  restored  from  these 
fragments  of  the  last  writings  of  this  great  man.  He  has 
concentrated  in  them  whatever  of  most  perfect  the  human 
race  had  felt,  imagined,  or  thought  in  Asia,  Greece,  and 
Rome  up  to  his  own  period,  in  the  most  splendid  expres 
sion  and  most  harmonious  tongue  that  human  intelligence 
ever  fashioned  to  embody  ideas.  It  is  thought  become  life 
and  music  beneath  his  master  hand.  The  only  fault  that 
can  be  found  in  these  products  of  Cicero's  hours  of  thought 
is  the  excess  of  their  perfection.  By  working  out  every 
idea,  and  polishing  every  phrase  to  the  complete  leveling 
of  each  minutest  asperity  on  the  surface  of  his  style,  he 
deprives  it  of  some  of  that  happy  abruptness  and  easy  neg 
ligence  of  expression  which  gives  originality  and  raciness 
to  the  language  of  genius.  Nothing  is  sufficiently  prom 
inent,  because  every  thing  is  duly  subordinate  to  the  rest. 
This  smooth  perfection  is  not,  with  him,  the  result  of  la 
bor,  but  of  natural  bias.  His  imagination  produced  noth 
ing  which  was  not  conformable  to  that  internal  type  which 
he  above  all  other  men  possessed,  and  which  is  called  ideal 
beauty.  This  inborn  love  of  beauty  did  not  diminish  the 
copiousness  of  his  imagination.  He  conversed  with  his 
friends,  he  harangued  the  tribunals  and  the  people,  and  he 
wrote,  as  we  breathe,  without  relaxation,  without  effort, 
and  without  exertion.  To  his  detractors  at  Rome,  who 


416  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

reproached  him  for  the  idleness  of  his  Tusculan  retreat, 
h«  answered,  "•  Of  what  do  they  complain  1  In  this  so- 
called  indolence,  I  write  more  in  a  day,  with  my  own  hand 
and  by  my  secretaries,  than  they  can  read !" 

"  There,"  he  says,  speaking  of  his  house  at  Astura,  a 
still  more  solitary  retreat,  near  Antium,  which  he  filled 
with  the  studies  of  his  leisure,  "  there  I  live  without  in 
tercourse  with  men.  With  the  first  dawn  of  day  I  dive 
into  the  depth  of  the  surrounding  forests,  and  do  not  leave 
them  until  evening.  My  only  converse  is  with  my  books, 
and  it  is  only  interrupted  by  my  tears."  He  still  mourned 
in  soul  for  Tullia,  his  daughter,  whom  he  was  accused  of 
loving  so  much  as  to  worship  her  memory.  He  ruined  his 
estate,  yet  scarcely  cleared  from  its  encumbrances,  to  build 
her  a  temple  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  to  immortalize  his 
sorrow.  "  Yes  !"  he  cries,  in  the  madness  of  his  paternal 
affliction,  addressing  the  shade  of  his  child,  "  yes  !  I  will 
make  thee  sacred,  0  thou  most  loving  and  accomplished 
of  daughters !  I  will  install  thee  in  the  assembly  of  the 
celestial  gods,  and  offer  thee  to  the  adoration  of  mortals  !" 
He  endeavored  to  calm  his  despair  by  writing  a  treatise  on 
consolation,  pages  wet  with  tears,  in  which  he  collects  all 
that  reason,  philosophy,  religion,  honor,  literature,  heaven, 
and  earth  can  suggest,  to  console  a  man  for  the  loss  of 
what  he  loves,  without  being  able  to  produce  oblivion. 

His  secret  remorse  at  having,  if  not  abandoned,  at  least 
neglected  the  Republic,  and  the  desire  of  placing  on  record 
kis  esteem  for  the  virtue  he  could  not  imitate,  dictated  a 
splendid  eulogy  on  Cato.  There  was  truth  and  courage 
in  paying  this  homage  to  patriotism  under  the  eye  of  tyr 
anny  :  Csesar  might  have  taken  offense  at  this  praise  of 
an  enemy — an  enemy  who  could  not  have  been  so  great 
had  CsBsar  been  less  guilty.  The  dictator  was  not,  how 
ever,  displeased.  He  was  content  to  leave  Cicero  the  vain 
consolation  of  lauding  those  who  had  died  for  liberty,  and 
even  found  time,  amid  the  cares  of  empire,  to  answer  him 
with  his  own  hand  in  a  book  entitled  the  "Anti-Cato." 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  417 

But  while  refuting  Cicero,  Csesar  gave  him  the  highest 
honor.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  he  who,  like 
Cicero,  enlarged  by  his  genius  the  limits  of  the  human 
mind,  was  superior  to  one  who,  like  Csesar,  only  enlarged 
the  natural  limits  of  the  empire." 

He  then  wrote  philosophical  meditations  and  dialogues, 
by  which  he  naturalized  in  Roman  literature  all  the  an 
cient  lore  of  Asia,  Greece,  and  Egypt,  setting  forth  as  an 
impartial  expositor  the  wisest  or  most  profound  remarks 
of  the  learned  men  of  all  ages  and  of  all  countries  on  the 
eternally  controverted  question  of  the  divine  origin  of  the 
soul  and  of  the  world,  pronouncing  finally  for  what  seem 
ed  to  him  to  be  the  most  probable,  the  most  proper,  and 
the  most  beautiful. 

The  openings  and  interludes  of  these  philosophical 
meditations,  under  various  titles,  are  full  of  familiarity, 
and  written  in  an  easy,  confidential  tone,  like  the  enjoy 
ments  of  the  country  and  the  freedom  of  conversation. 
We  perceive  them  to  be  the  work  of  a  man  who  has  quit 
ted  public  life — who  mourns  the  degradation  of  his  coun 
try,  while  still  preserving  some  vague  hope  of  the  restora 
tion  of  laws,  liberty,  and  morals,  but  turning  away  his 
face  from  Rome  to  bury  himself  completely  in  the  shade 
of  his  forests,  the  contemplation  of  nature,  and  the  study 
of  things  eternal.  His  favofite  personages  in  his  dialogues 
are  at  the  same  time  his  most  intimate  and  illustrious 
friends — Varro,  the  poet  and  historian  ;  Brutus,  an  austere 
but  elegant  philosopher,  a  disciple  of  Plato  and  Cato,  and 
a  follower  of  Caesar,  whose  son  he  was  supposed  to  be, 
through  the  weakness  of  his  mother  Servilia,  whom  the 
dictator  had  once  loved  ;  Hortensius,  his  own  associate 
and  rival,  after  himself,  Rome's  greatest  orator ;  and 
others  of  the  select  men  of  their  day. 

The  scene  is  generally  on  the  sand  of  Baise's  echoing 
shore  ;  or  among  the  fig-trees  spangled  with  the  purple 
branches  of  the  twisted  vine  on  the  coast  of  CumsB  ;  or  in 
the  umbrageous  orange  grove  of  Cicero's  villa  near  Gae'ta, 

S3 


418  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

where  we  may  still  trace  the  footsteps  of  himself  and 
friends  on  the  mosaic  pavement  of  his  baths  ;  or,  lastly, 
among  the  green  oaks  of  his  country  house  at  Tusculum, 
by  the  fresh  and  roaring  stream  that  dashes  down  from 
the  rocks  of  the  Apennines.  He  begins  with  the  vague 
and  careless  hesitation  of  one  who  is  seeking  for  a  plan 
of  conversation,  then  warms  with  the  subject,  and  bursts 
into  the  fire  and  enthusiasm  of  poetry.  "We  regret  that 
the  limits  of  our  pages  do  not  allow  of  our  translating 
some  fragments  for  our  readers.  They  remind  us  of  the 
solemn  calm  of  Plato,  who  compels  the  silence  of  the  soul 
before  speaking  to  it  of  the  gods.  Cicero,  in  passages 
which  even  now  might  appear  somewhat  over-bold,  fears 
not  to  deplore  the  ruin  of  the  Republic,  and  to  mourn  over 
the  departed  freedom  and  dignity  of  Rome.  "  Compelled 
as  I  am  to  give  up  affairs  of  state,  I  have  no  better  means 
of  being  useful  than  by  writing  to  enlighten  and  console 
the  Romans ;  I  trust  to  earn  praise  in  that,  after  seeing 
the  government  of  my  country  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  in 
dividual,  I  have  neither  shrunk  as  a  coward  from  publicity, 
nor  given  myself  over  unreservedly  to  those  who  are  in 
power.  My  writings  replace  my  harangues  to  the  senate 
and  the  people,  and  I  have  substituted  philosophical  med 
itation  for  political  discussion  and  public  administration." 
The  two  most  remarkable  of  these  works  are  his  "  Re 
searches  into  the  Existence  and  Nature  of  the  Gods,"  and 
the  treatise  intituled  "  De  Republica."  In  the  former,  he 
rises  by  all  the  gradations  of  thought  of  all  countries,  of 
all  ages,  and  through  all  the  darkness  and  phantasms  of 
human  superstition,  to  the  idea  of  one  God,  perfect,  just, 
good  ;  an  eternal  Creator,  by  his  providence  pervading  all, 
from  the  glorious  worlds  to  the  minutest  atoms ,  the  first 
and  last  Principle  of  all  that  has  been,  is,  and  is  to  be  ; 
invisible,  impalpable  ;  calling  himself  God,  Destiny,  Prov 
idence,  Maker,  Avenger ;  and  giving  to  all  that  he  has 
created,  existence,  locality,  time,  moral  being,  reward,  and 
end,  in  himself,  even  as  in  him  is  the  beginning  of  all  things. 


MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO.  419 

With  Cicero  these  doctrines  are  not,  as  they  might  be 
supposed,  purely  speculative  ;  they  breathe  the  spirit  of 
practical  religion  in  all  its  most  emphatic  and  imperative 
activity.  "  There  both  are  and  have  been  philosophers 
who  lay  down  that  the  gods  take  no  care  whatever,  in  any 
way,  relating  to  the  affairs  of  man.  If  their  opinion  be 
true,  what  becomes  of  piety  ?  of  holiness  ?  of  religion  ? 
for  all  these  duties  must  be  purely  and  honorably  dis 
charged  toward  the  gods,  if  they  are  concerned  with  them, 
or  if  any  care  is  vouchsafed  by  the  deities  to  the  human 
race Even  as  virtues  can  not  coexist  with  a  sim 
ulated  affectation  of  morality,  so  it  is  with  piety,  on  which 
hang  holiness  and  worship.  If  these  be  taken  away,  our 
life  becomes  a  perplexity,  and  confusion  without  end. 
And  I  am  not  certain  whether  the  loss  of  piety  toward  the 
gods  would  not  be  followed  by  the  disappearance  of  good 
faith,  the  bond  of  human  society,  and  that  most  excellent 
of  all  virtues,  the  instinct  of  justice  !" 

In  his  book  on  the  Republic,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  prin 
ciples,  laws,  forms,  faults,  and  advantages  of  the  govern 
ments  by  which  societies  are  founded,  sustained,  dissolved, 
or  perfected,  Cicero  rises  higher  than  in  any  other  of  his 
writings.  We  shall  only  quote  one  fragment,  the  Dream 
of  Scipio,  which  closes  the  book.  The  philosophy,  piety, 
virtue,  poetry,  and  genius  of  Cicero,  stamp  themselves  in 
a  few  pages,  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  man  and  of  the  age 
exhibit  themselves  in  a  language  worthy  of  all  times. 

The  second  Scipio,  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  virtuous 
names  in  Rome,  is  brought  upon  the  scene  by  Cicero. 
This  young  Scipio  relates  to  his  friends  in  the  dialogue  a 
dream  which  he  had  in  Africa,  and  in  which  the  shade  of 
his  grandfather,  Scipio  Africanus,  the  conqueror  of  Car 
thage,  appears  to  him  and  predicts  his  fatal  death,  encour 
ages  him  to  persevere  in  the  unremunerated  services 
which  every  citizen  owes  to  his  country,  to  despise  death, 
and,  what  is  still  more  sublime,  to  despise  even  glory. 

"  *  But  in  order,'  Africanus  continued,  *  that  you  may  be 


420  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

the  more  ready  to  defend  the  Commonwealth,  learn  this : 
that  to  all  those  who  have  rescued,  aided,  or  extended 
their  country,  a  certain  part  of  heaven  is  reserved,  in  which 
they  may  happily  enjoy  eternal  life  ;  for  nothing  on  earth 
is  more  acceptable  to  the  Almighty  God,  who  rules  this 
world,  than  those  legally  constituted  assemblies  and  so 
cieties  of  men  which  are  called  states  :  their  rulers  and 
preservers  both  descend  from  heaven,  and  return  there 
after  death.' 

"  I  then,  although  I  was  frightened,  not  so  much  by  the 
fear  of  death  as  by  the  danger  of  treachery  from  my  own 
followers,  asked  whether  he  himself,  and  my  father  Pau- 
lus,  and  others  whom  we  think  dead,  were  alive.  l  Yes,' 
he  said,  *  they  live  ;  they  have  fled  from  the  confinement 
of  their  bodies,  as  if  from  a  prison.  But  your  life,  as  you 
call  it,  is  death.  Do  not  you  see  your  father  Paulus  coming 
toward  you  ?'  I  beheld  him,  and  burst  into  tears  ;  but  he, 
embracing  and  kissing  me,  told  me  not  to  weep. 

"  As  soon  as  I  could  restrain  my  sobs  sufficiently  to 
speak,  I  said,  *  But  pray,  my  best  and  most  excellent  father, 
since  this  is  life,  as  Africanus  tells  me,  why  do  I  remain 
on  earth  ?  Why  do  I  not  hasten  to  come  to  you  ?'  '  Not 
so,  my  son,'  he  replied  ;  '  for  unless  that  God,  of  whom  all 
that  you  see  is  the  temple,  liberates  you  from  the  bonds 
of  the  body,  you  can  have  no  entrance  here.  Men  are 
born  subject  to  the  condition  that  they  should  keep  that 
globe  which  you  see  in  the  middle  of  this  temple  of  the 
universe,  and  which  is  called  the  earth,  and  a  soul  is  given 

to  them  from  the  eternal  fire Wherefore  you,  Pub- 

lius,  and  all  religious  men,  will  retain  your  souls  in  the 
keeping  of  your  bodies,  nor,  without  the  command  of  Him 
by  whom  life  was  given,  will  you  quit  the  life  of  men,  lest 
you  should  appear  to  have  escaped  from  the  human  duty 
assigned  you  by  God.  But,  Scipio,  like  this  your  grand 
father,  and  as  I  did,  who  begot  you,  cultivate  justice  and 
piety,  which,  while  much  is  due  to  your  parents  and  neigh 
bors,  is  due  above  all  things  to  your  country.  Such  a  life 


MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO.  421 

is  the  road  to  heaven,  and  to  this  assembly  of  those  who 
have  once  existed,  and  whose  souls,  freed  from  their  bod 
ies,  inhabit  the  place  you  behold ' 

"  The  place  he  pointed  out  was  that  brilliant  girdle  of 
fire  shining  out  from  among  the  stars  with  dazzling  white 
ness,  and  which  you,  after  the  Greeks,  have  called  the 
Milky  Way.  It  was  from  this  glorious  standing  that  I  be 
held  the  other  wonders  of  the  universe.  Stars  then  ap 
peared  which  we  have  never  seen  from  hence,  and  their 
magnitude  was  far  beyond  what  we  are  accustomed  to  con 
ceive.  Among  them  all,  that  little  one,  the  last  from  heav 
en,  the  nearest  to  the  earth,  was  shining  with  a  borrowed 
light.  The  stellar  spheres  far  exceeded  the  dimensions 
of  the  earth,  which  appeared  so  small  that  I  was  almost 
ashamed  of  our  empire,  which  is  but  a  spot  on  its  surface. 

"  I  was  gazing  intently  on  it  when  Africanus  cried, '  How 
long  will  your  mind  be  fixed  upon  the  earth  ?  See  you 
not  the  wonderful  abode  which  you  have  reached  ?'.... 

"  '  I  perceive,'  continued  Africanus,  '  that  you  still  gaze 
upon  the  dwelling  and  habitation  of  men,  small  as  it  now 
appears.  Keep  rather  your  attention  always  fixed  upon 
celestial  objects,  and  despise  the  concerns  of  earth.  What 
fame  can  you  acquire  by  the  voice  of  men  ?  or  what  glory 
can  you  win  among  them  ?  You  see  that  they  dwell  upon 
earth  in  a  few  small  and  scattered  places,  and  that  there 
are  even  vast  solitudes  occupying  part  of  the  little  patches 
they  inhabit ;  and  they  are  not  only  so  interrupted  that  no 
communication  can  take  place  between  them,  but  some  are 
distant,  others  unfriendly,  and  some  even  at  enmity  with 
you,  from  whom  you  can  certainly  expect  no  fame. 

"  '  Even  if  the  future  race  of  men  desired  to  hand  down 
to  posterity  the  praises  of  each  of  us  whom  our  forefathers 
have  given  them,  yet,  on  account  of  the  deluges  and  con 
flagrations  which  at  stated  periods  must  devastate  the 
earth,  not  only  can  our  glory  not  be  eternal, but  it  cannot 
even  be  of  long  duration.  What  matters  it  that  those  who 
shall  hereafter  be  born  should  talk  about  you,  when  there 


422  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

is  no  mention  of  you  among  those  that  are  past,  not  fewer 
in  number,  but  certainly  better  and  more  glorious  ? 

" '  Wherefore,  although  you  should  despair  of  returning 
to  this  place,  in  which  every  thing  is  for  the  great  and 
good,  yet  what  value  can  you  set  on  the  glory  of  men, 
which  can  scarcely  last  the  small  fraction  of  a  year?  But 
if  you  will  look  on  high,  and  contemplate  this  dwelling  and 
eternal  resting-place,  you  will  neither  care  for  the  discourse 
of  the  vulgar,  nor  place  the  hope  of  your  life  in  human  re 
ward  :  virtue  itself,  by  its  own  charms,  must  draw  you  to 
true  honor.  What  others  may  say  of  you  is  their  concern. 
They  will  talk.  But  their  voice  is  both  confined  to  the 
narrow  dimensions  of  the  little  spot  you  see,  arid  was  never 
of  any  duration  as  regards  any  one,  being  buried  by  the 
perishing  of  men,  and  lost  in  the  oblivion  of  posterity.' 

"When  he  had  thus  spoken,  I  answered, '  If  the  gate  of 
heaven  is  opened  by  good  service  to  our  country,  then,  0 
Africanus  !  I,  who  have  followed  the  footsteps  of  my  father 
and  yourself,  have  not  fallen  off  from  your  fair  fame.  Now, 
however,  with  the  hope  of  such  reward,  I  shall  work  with 
far  greater  energy.'  *  Work  on!'  he  replied  ;  '  and  remem 
ber  that  it  is  not  you  that  are  mortal,  but  your  body  ;  for 
you  are  not  what  that  form  exhibits,  but  the  mind  of  each 
is  the  man  himself,  not  that  figure  which  is  pointed  at  by 
the  finger.  Know,  therefore,  that  you  are  divine  ;  for 
truly  that  is  divine  which  has  power  and  feeling,  memory 
and  forethought,  and  which  governs,  regulates,  and  moves 
the  body  which  it  is  given  to  command,  even  as  the  Al 
mighty  rules  the  universe ;  and  even  as  the  eternal  God 
rules  a  perishable  world,  so,  our  frail  body  is  moved  by  an 
immortal  soul.  Exert  your  intellect,  therefore,  on  what  is 
best ;  and  the  best  is  to  labor  for  your  country ;  for  the 
soul,  quickened  and  invigorated  by  these  pursuits,  flies  off 
more  rapidly  to  this  its  dwelling  and  its  home.  This  it 
will  do  the  easier,  if,  while  still  inclosed  in  its  prison,  it 
looks  abroad  and  contemplates  things  beyond  its  narrow 
sphere,  abstracting  itself  as  much  as  possible  from  the 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  423 

body.  As  for  those  who  have  given  themselves  up  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  body,  and  have  made  themselves  its  slaves, 
obeying  the  impulses  of  lust  arid  sensual  gratification,  they 
have  violated  the  laws  of  God  and  man  ;  their  souls,  on 
quitting  their  bodies,  shall  wander  to  and  fro  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  not  until  they  shall  have  been  driven 
about  for  many  centuries  shall  they  revisit  this  abode.' 

"  He  departed,  and  I  awoke  from  my  dream." 

"What  can  be  said  more  beautiful  or  more  moral,  even 
at  the  present  day  ?  The  jnind  of  Cicero  was  twenty  cen 
turies  in  advance  of  his  time. 

While  this  illustrious  man  was  thus  deriving  consolation 
by  reflecting  his  mind  back  on  itself  and  upon  the  contem 
plation  of  God,  and  conversing  with  the  great  minds  of  all 
ages  on  the  slavery  and  degradation  of  his  country,  Ceesar 
in  four  short  years  had  run  through  the  rapid  career  of 
tyrants.  The  crime  of  his  assassins  avenged  on  him  the 
crime  of  the  passage  of  the  Rubicon.  His  murderers  were 
Brutus,  Cassius,  Casca,  and  all  the  flower  of  the  patrician 
youth  of  Rome,  its  scholars  and  its  republicans.  Early 
imbued  with  the  lessons  of  ancient  inflexibility,  and  im 
pressed  with  the  example  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogiton, 
these  young  men  blushed  at  living  under  a  master  who 
deprived  them  of  all  that  gave  dignity  to  existence.  They 
thought  that  a  tyrant's  blood  sanctified  the  dagger.  A 
false  and  cruel  virtue,  which  perverted  even  their  natural 
feeling,  changing  citizens  into  murderers,  driving  the 
friends  of  Brutus  to  assassination,  and  himself,  possibly  a 
son  of  Cffisar,  even  to  parricide  !  Antiquity  admired  these 
sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  liberty.  In  our  day  we  are  no 
longer  deceived  by  them.  Our  liberty,  our  country,  even 
immortal  honor,  are  not  to  be  ransomed  by  the  drop  of 
blood  that  flows  from  the  assassin's  steel.  The  ransom  of 
the  whole  human  race  would  be  dear  at  such  a  purchase. 

The  conspirators,  whether  they  suspected  Cicero,  the 
friend  of  all,  of  too  much  weakness  or  of  too  pure  a  vir 
tue,  did  not  confide  their  plot  to  him.  They  concealed 


424  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

their  plan  from  him  for  fear  of  being  shaken  by  his  scru- 
ples. 

Rome  was  tired  of  idolizing  Caesar.  The  plebeians, 
whom  he  had  courted  in  order  to  balance  them  against 
the  senate,  were  beginning  to  feel  the  weight  of  military 
despotism.  The  patricians,  whom  he  again  favored  and 
gratified  with  offices  and  presents,  blushed  at  owing  any 
thing  to  their  own  baseness ;  the  senate  voted  supplies, 
but  murmured  ;  the  soldiers  were  already  thinking  of 
selling  themselves  at  a  higher ^price  to  another  purchaser. 
Brutus  and  his  friends  were  inflaming  their  own  minds 
by  reading  the  historians,  poets,  and  philosophers,  who 
deified  the  liberators  of  nations.  Public  opinion  was  too 
much  with  them  to  render  numerous  accomplices  neces 
sary  in  a  project  which  would  secure  the  applause  of  the 
multitude  immediately  upon  its  execution. 

They  concealed  their  weapons  beneath  their  gowns, 
waited  for  Caesar  in  the  senate-house,  threw  themselves 
in  his*  way  as  he  came  in,  as  if  to  surround  him  with  a 
more  servile  and  cringing  humility,  kissed  the  hem  of  his 
robe,  held  out  petitions  to  him  to  engage  his  benevolent 
attention,  and  only  showed  him  friendly  faces,  and  fea 
tures  that  he  knew,  grouped  around  him,  thus  delaying 
his  getting  to  his  seat  in  the  senate  ;  then  giving  him,  as 
each  could  strike,  twenty-seven  poniard  wounds,  stretch 
ed  him  lifeless  at  the  foot  of  Pompey's  statue.  The  sen 
ate,  struck  at  first  with  fear,  then  with  horror,  and  at  last 
with  joy,  escaped  in  every  direction,  without  knowing 
whether  to  evince  satisfaction  or  abhorrence  at  the  deed. 

Brutus,  Cassius,  and  the  other  conspirators  went  out, 
calling  the  people  to  liberty.  The  people,  half  glad  at 
vengeance,  half  pitying  their  dictator,  applauded  them, 
and  allowed  them  to  go  alone  to  the  Capitol.  Antony, 
Caesar's  lieutenant,  who  had  himself  at  one  time  conspired 
against  his  master's  life,  now  commanded  the  troops,  and 
was  charged  by  the  senate  with  protecting  Rome  from 
anarchy.  He  followed  with  consummate  skill  all  the  sue- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  425 

cessive  symptoms  of  popular  emotion ;  on  the  first  day,  a 
doubtful  ally  of  the  conspirators  ;  on  the  second,  the  arm 
ed  protector  of  the  senate  ;  on  the  third,  a  mourner  for 
Caesar ;  on  the  fourth,  the  avenger  of  his  death,  exhibit 
ing  from  the  rostrum  to  the  eager  eyes  of  the  multitude 
the  bloody  toga  of  the  dictator,  pierced  with  the  stabs  he 
had  received ;  soon  afterward,  master  and  lord  of  all, 
keeping  Rome  undecided  between  the  love  of  liberty  and, 
the  need  of  slavery,  and  compelling  Brutus  and  his  friends 
to  quit  the  city  they  had  liberated  for  fear  of  being  them 
selves  sacrificed  to  the  vengeance  of  Caesar's  party,  of 
which  the  strength  had  been  renewed  by  his  sanguinary 
death.  Such  was  the  issue  of  the  crime.  Tyranny  was 
recalled  by  the  revulsion  of  pity.  A  right  reward  to  those 
who  think  to  gain  justice,  and  who  only  succeed  in  creat 
ing  horror,  by  assassination. 

In  order  to  remain  master  of  Rome,  Antony  had  clever 
ly  connected  himself  with  another  lieutenant  of  Caesar,  ^ 
named  Lepidus,  his  rival  in  the  army,  and  who  com 
manded  the  detachment  about  to  leave  for  Spain.  They 
swelled  their  forces  by  enrolling  all  the  veterans  scat 
tered  through  the  provinces,  and  left  the  senate  a  sem 
blance  of  authority.  During  this  species  of  interregnum 
between  the  Republic  and  the  Dictatorship,  after  Caesar's 
death,  Brutus  and  Cassius  retired  to  Lanuvium,  a  small 
town  in  the  Campagna  of  Rome.  Cicero  gave  full  scope 
to  his  joy  at  the  restoration  of  the  republic.  He  pressed 
the  conspirators  to  seize  the  moment,  which  would  soon 
slip  away  if  they  hesitated,  in  order  to  re-establish  their 
ancient  liberties.  Brutus,  more  of  a  philosopher  and  ora 
tor  than  of  a  statesman,  seemed  to  have  expended  all  his 
energy  in  the  blow  that  felled  the  tyrant.  He  was  still 
writing,  reviewing,  polishing,  submitting  to  Cicero's  revi 
sion,  altering,  reciting,  and  perfecting  a  long  discourse  in 
veighing  against  Csesar  and  justifying  his  murder,  which 
he  designed  to  read  to  the  senate  and  people  in  the  month 
of  June,  when  the  senate  was  to  resume  its  sittings.  A 


426  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

vain  orator,  who  did  not  know  that  rhetoricians  demand 
words,  but  that  revolutions  require  deeds. 

Caesar's  friends,  and  even  Antony,  were  also  courting 
Cicero.  They  endeavored  to  draw  him  over  to  their  side 
by  the  repeated  offer  of  the  chief  magistracy.  He  had, 
without  crime  of  his  own,  recovered  his  former  liberty  by 
the  blow  which  relieved  him  from  the  humiliating  friend 
ship  of  Caesar  and  his  embarrassing  gratitude  to  the  dicta 
tor.  He  remained  inflexible  at  the  head  of  the  good  citi 
zens,  and  of  the  moderate,  firm,  and  patrician  party  in  the 
Republic.  He  stayed  at  his  country  house  writing,  while 
Rome  awaited  her  destiny,  without  having  the  energy  to 
mould  it  for  herself. 

"Is  this  what  we  were  to  see?"  he  writes  to  Atticus. 
"  What !  is  the  energy  of  Brutus  reduced  to  living  idly  in 
his  house  at  Lanuvium,  and  to  perpetuate,  in  Antony  and 
Lepidus,  the  reign  of  Caesar,  more  irresitible  after  his 
death  than  during  his  life  ?" 

These  vain  reproaches  restored  neither  popularity  nor 
boldness  to  Brutus  and  Cassius.  Their  only  effect  was  to 
irritate  Antony  against  him.  The  anger  of  the  veterans, 
stimulated  by  Antony,  threatened  him  even  in  his  Tuscu- 
lan  retreat.  They  talked  at  Rome  of  going  to  burn  him 
out.  He  was  thinking  of  again  taking  refuge  in  Greece. 
He  embarked  at  Naples,  and  coasted  the  shores  of  Italy 
as  far  as  Reggio  in  Calabria,  where  he  had  an  interview 
with  Brutus  and  Cassius.  They  informed  him  that  the 
tide  of  public  opinion  in  Rome  was  setting  toward  lib 
erty,  and  that  Cicero's  name  was  mentioned  as  that  of  the 
only  man  whose  counsels  could  at  the  same  time  impart 
courage  to  the  senate  and  wisdom  to  the  people.  He  dis 
embarked,  and  hastened  back  to  the  neighborhood  of 
Rome.  The  citizens  nocked  round  him  every  where,  as 
they  had  done  on  his  first  return  from  exile.  Rome 
seemed  to  feel  the  want  of  his  genius  whenever  he  was 
far  away.  He  retired  to  Tusculum,  not  venturing  to  en 
ter  Rome  while  Antony  was  master  of  the  city. 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 


427 


But  Antony's  popularity  was  already  waning  among 
the  people,  the  senators,  and  the  troops.  Another  popu 
larity,  more  firm,  and  more  endeared  to  the  Romans,  was 
rising  on  its  ruins :  it  was  that  of  the  young  Csesar  Oc- 
tavius,  the  son  of  a  niece  of  the  great  dictator,  who  had 
declared  him  by  will  his  heir.  This  youth,  absent  from 
Rome  with  his  mother  at  the  time  of  Caesar's  death,  had 
first  returned  timidly  to  ask  Antony  for  his  uncle's  inher 
itance.  Antony  had  despised  and  threatened  him.  His 
youth,  his  name,  his  title  as  Cfesar's  heir  and  adopted  son, 
his  mother's  tears,  and  Antony's  harshness,  interested  the 
Romans.  Contempt  for  Antony,  confidence  in  the  prom 
ise  of  youth,  and  the  liberality  to  the  soldiers  in  Ceesar's 
will,  which  his  heir  pledged  himself  to  execute,  effected 
the  rest.  Octavius,  accompanied  by  his  mother,  showing 
himself  at  Rome,  going  through  the  provinces,  imploring 
the  people,  appealing  to  the  veterans,  promising  the  Re 
publicans  to  restore  their  ancient  liberties  and  rescue  them 
from  the  vile  soldiery  of  Antony,  had  in  a  short  time  be 
come,  with  some,  the  future  avenger  of  Ceesar ;  with  oth 
ers,  the  unexpected  deliverer  of  the  Republic.  He  pre 
tended  to  see  the  whole  state  represented  by  Cicero.  Cic 
ero  was  his  oracle.  He  kept  up  a  correspondence  with 
him,  he  came  to  visit  him  in  his  retirement,  behaved  to 
him  as  a  son  learning  wisdom  from  a  father  ;  he  promised 
that  the  power  he  would  derive  from  his  inheritance,  his 
name,  his  party,  and  the  favor  of  Rome,  should  be  solely 
devoted  to  restoring,  under  Cicero's  auspices,  the  authority 
of  the  senate,  the  supremacy  of  the  law,  and  the  ancient 
liberty. 

Cicero,  even  if  he  did  not  believe  this,  was  obliged  to 
take  it  for  truth.  His  desire  for  the  restoration  of  a  free 
government,  his  friendship  for  Brutus,  his  just  hatred  and 
well-founded  dread  of  Antony,  gave  him  no  other  instru 
ment  than  this  youth  to  rouse  Rome  against  the  wretched 
tyrant  who  had  succeeded  to  Caesar's  despotism,  without 
inheriting  his  gentleness,  his  grace,  or  his  genius.  For 


428  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

the  safety,  therefore,  of  the  Republic,  he  leagued  with  Oc- 
tavius,  and  declared  himself  openly  his  protector.  As  soon 
as  it  was  known  that  Cicero  took  part  with  the  young  CSB- 
sar,  the  cause  of  Antony  was  lost  in  the  opinion  of  Italy. 
The  moral  influence  of  the  orator  was  greater  than  the 
power  of  an  army. 

Antony,  abandoned  by  the  legions  near  Rome,  departed 
with  rage  in  his  heart  for  the  Alps,  to  seek  others.  Oc- 
tavius  and  the  consuls  marched  against  him,  supported  by 
the  authority  of  the  senate,  and  defeated  him  near  Mo- 
dena.  Antony,  conquered,  but  recovering  in  his  defeat 
the  energy  of  despair,  crossed  the  Alps  with  a  single  le 
gion,  gained  over  his  rival  Lepidus,  who  commanded  an 
other  Roman  army  in  Gaul,  and  again  descended  from  the 
mountains  with  a  hundred  thousand  men  to  dispute  the 
dominion  of  Italy  with  Octavius.  The  fate  of  the  world 
for  some  months  trembled  in  the  balance. 

Cicero  returned  to  Rome,  and  stirred  up  the  sacred  fire 
of  liberty  in  twelve  immortal  harangues  to  the  senate  and 
the  people  against  Antony.  These  harangues  were  called 
Philippics,  in  allusion  to  the  orations  of  the  Greek  orator, 
Demosthenes,  against  Philip  of  Macedon,  who  threatened 
the  liberty  of  Athens  as  Antony  threatened  that  of  Rome. 

These  twelve  orations  of  Cicero  were  the  fruit  of  his 
genius  matured  by  age,  of  his  patriotism  humiliated  by 
slavery,  of  his  anger  roused  by  fear  and  by  a  species  of 
presentiment  of  the  crimes  of  Antony  and  his  wife  Fulvia, 
more  wicked  even  than  her  husband,  as  well  as  of  that 
virtuous  despair  which,  no  longer  caring  to  save  a  hopeless 
life,  desires  at  least  to  gain  immortal  fame.  They  are  the 
death-cry  of  Cicero,  sounding  far  beyond  the  grave.  Rea 
soning,  passion,  prayer,  imprecation,  invective,  that  holy 
anger  which  justifies  insult,  apostrophes  to  Rome,  invoca 
tion  of  the  gods,  defiance  of  assassination,  heroism  in  heart, 
mind,  tone,  and  gesture,  are  alternately  or  altogether  call 
ed  in  to  give  intensity  to  the  thunder  of  his  eloquence,  to 
raise  the  Romans  from  their  abasement,  and  to  restore  to 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  429 

them,  through  excessive  contempt  for  their  tyrant,  if  not 
the  courage  of  free  men,  yet  shame  at  least  for  their  slav 
ery.  They  form  the  longest  and  most  sublime  declama 
tion  of  anger  that  has  ever  resounded  among  men. 

Rome  and  the  senate  were  actually  aroused  for  some 
months  by  these  efforts,  but  it  was  only  to  fall  again. 

While  Cicero,  at  the  age  of  sixty-four,  was  endeavoring 
to  infuse  into  his  country  the  fire  of  his  inextinguishable 
youth,  Octavius,  for  whom  he  was  contending  at  Rome, 
was  treating  with  his  rivals  Antony  and  Lepidus  at  Mo- 
dena,  finding  it  safer  to  divide  the  empire  than  to  risk  it 
on  the  event  of  a  doubtful  battle,  and  well  knowing  be 
forehand  that  his  name  and  his  political  skill  would  event 
ually  secure  him  the  whole. 

Cicero,  informed  of  this  treachery  and  ingratitude  of  his 
young  pupil,  wrote  in  vain  to  Brutus  and  Cassius  to  hasten 
to  Italy  with  the  African  legions  to  save  the  Republic 
once  more.  Their  crime  weighed  upon  them.  They 
dared  not  again  show  themselves  in  the  land  from  which 
the  cry  of  Caesar's  blood  was  hourly  rising  against  them 
with  a  louder  and  a  louder  voice. 

Octavius,  Antony,  and  Lepidus  arranged  an  interview 
in  a  little  island  of  the  River  Reno,  which  flows  past  Bo 
logna.  They  remained  in  deliberation  for  three  days  and 
nights,  and  agreed  to  form  a  triumvirate,  or  tripartite  gov 
ernment,  dividing  the  Roman  world  into  three  portions, 
each  of  them  an  empire.  But  it  was  a  small  thing  to  par 
cel  out  the  Republic  in  this  manner ;  it  was  also  neces 
sary  to  secure  its  peaceful  possession  by  slaughtering  all 
the  good  and  great  citizens  capable  of  opposing  or  giving 
trouble  to  their  tyranny.  Their  treaty  was  sealed  with 
the  blood  of  3300  Romans,  whom  they  sacrificed  to  each 
other.  They  drew  out  their  lists  in  concert,  discussed 
them,  added  to  them,,  struck  out  names,  and  bartered  the 
lives  and  deaths  of  friends  and  enemies,  until  each  had 
given  up  to  the  others  the  blood  of  his  dearest  relative,  to 
obtain  in  return  the  sacrifice  of  his  mortal  foe. 


430  MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO. 

Cicero  headed  the  catalogue.  Octavius,  with  some  re 
mains  of  shame,  defended  him  for  a  time,  representing  the 
disgrace  which  would  attach  to  a  government  whose  first 
act  was  the  murder  of  the  greatest  citizen  and  the  great 
est  genius  of  Rome.  But  the  Philippics  cried  aloud  for 
vengeance  in  the  heart  of  Antony.  The  two  colleagues 
of  Octavius  doubtless  reminded  him  that  a  balance  of 
power  was  necessary  to  secure  a  lasting  agreement ;  that 
Cicero,  owing  to  his  genius  and  celebrity,  possessed  too 
great  a  moral  influence  in  the  Republic,  and  that  which 
ever  of  the  triumvirs  he  declared  for  would  soon  be  an 
overmatch  for  the  others  ;  and  that  the  destruction  of  the 
equilibrium  by  the  influence  of  this  great  man  would 
plunge  themselves  into  obscurity,  and  throw  Italy  back 
into  anarchy.  Octavius  gave  way  to  the  force  of  this  as 
sassin's  logic,  and  to  his  desire  to  possess  the  world.  He 
thought  Rome  worth  the  crime,  and  he  gave  Antony  his 
revenge. 

The  triumvirs  concealed  their  proscriptions  until  their 
arrival,  fearing  lest  the  victims  might  escape  their  assas 
sins  by  flight,  and  advanced  slowly  together  toward  Rome. 
They  gave  out  the  names  of  only  seventeen  chiefs  of  the 
proscribed  whose  heads  were  to  grace  their  triumph  over 
the  Republic.  Cicero  was  still  first  on  the  list :  he  learn 
ed  his  fate  without  believing  it.  Could  Octavius  begin 
by  parricide  ?  Had  he  not  been  a  second  father  to  him  ? 
He  hoped  against  all  hope  in  Octavius  ;  but  he  feared  ev 
ery  thing  from  Antony,  and  especially  from  Fulvia,  his 
new  wife.  Men  forgive  :  women  are  revengeful,  because 
they  have  less  strength  to  control  their  passions. 

In  this  perplexity  Cicero  had  time  to  escape.  Could 
this  have  been  owing  to  Octavius  ?  Hesitation,  the  weak 
ness  of  great  minds,  who  have  more  ideas  to  balance  one 
against  the  other  than  other  men,  was  the  cause  of  his 
death,  as  it  had  been  the  curse  of  his  life.  He  lost  pre 
cious  days  and  hours  in  debating  with  himself  and  his 
friends  which  was  best  at  his  age,  to  stretch  his  neck  pa- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  431 

tiently  to  the  assassin,  and  die  calmly  and  stoically,  leav 
ing  his  blood  to  cry  aloud  against  tyranny  on  the  free  soil 
of  his  country,  or  to  go  to  Asia,  to  beg  the  life  and  bread 
of  exile  among  the  enemies  of  Rome.  His  mind  seemed 
to  vacillate  between  these  two  plans.  His  steps  wander 
ed  to  and  fro,  like  his  thoughts,  from  the  sea-shore  to  his 
house,  and  from  his  house  to  the  sea. 

He  at  length  resolved  to  delay  the  moment  for  his  final 
decision  by  quitting  Tusculum,  as  being  too  near  Rome. 
He  left  that  place  with  his  brother  duintus  Cicero,  and 
with  a  nephew  who  loved  him  like  a  son.  He  retired  to 
his  more  distant  retreat  of  Astura,  a  house  of  mourning, 
where,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  brooded  over  his 
grief  after  Tullia's  death.  The  wildness  of  the  spot  and 
the  depth  of  its  forests  seemed  to  afford  him  a  shelter 
from  the  villainy  of  men. 

This  villa  was  situated  on  the  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Na 
ples.  He  spent  some  days  in  watching  the  distant  steps 
of  the  triumvirs'  armies  slowly  approaching  Rome.  He 
seemed  resolved  to  await  his  death,  without  taking  the 
trouble  to  fly"  further  from  it,  or  caring  to  move  a  step  to 
meet  it.  His  brother  and  nephew,  with  his  freedmen  and 
slaves,  a  species  of  second  family,  whom  gratitude,  and  the 
customs  and  manners  of  the  time,  attached  to  their  mas 
ter  unto  death,  reminded  him  that  a  man  like  Cicero  was 
never  old  as  long  as  his  genius  could  counsel,  arouse,  or 
honor  his  country  ;  that  Cato,  by  suicide,  had  himself  pre 
maturely  destroyed  one  of  the  last  hopes  of  the  Republic 
by  his  impatience  or  weariness  of  virtue  ;  that,  if  he  were 
resolved  upon  death,  he  ought  at  least  to  make  his  fate 
useful  to  the  cause  of  the  good  citizens,  which  was  the 
cause  of  the  gods  ;  that  as  Brutus  and  Cassius  still  lived, 
and  were  collecting  in  Africa  legions  faithful  to  the  mem 
ory  of  Pompey  and  of  the  Republic,  and  ready  to  fight  the 
mercenary  troops  of  the  triumvirs,  he  ought  to  join  this 
last  remnant  of  the  Romans,  and  by  his  voice  and  pres 
ence  reanimate  a  cause  which  was  not  desperate  so  long 


432  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

as  Cicero  and  Brutus  were  with  it;  or  that,  if  he  must 
perish,  he  ought  at  least  to  expire  with  the  fall  of  justice, 
liberty,  and  virtue. 

This  advice  at  one  time  prevailed  with  him.  He  quit 
ted  his  retreat  at  Astura,  with  his  brother  and  an  escort 
of  slaves  and  friends,  to  reach  the  sea-shore,  and  embark 
in  a  galley  which  was  prepared  for  him.  But  the  haste 
with  which  he  had  left  Rome  and  Tusculum  on  the  first 
rumor  of  his  proscription,  prevented  his  taking  with  him 
the  gold  and  silver  necessary  during  a  long  exile.  He 
had  scarcely  set  out  on  his  journey  when  he  reflected  on 
the  indigence  to  which  he  was  about  to  expose  himself, 
with  his  family  and  friends,  in  his  banishment ;  he  stop 
ped  his  litter  (a  strong  frame  inclosed  by  curtains  and  car 
ried  on  the  shoulders  of  slaves,  used  instead  of  a  carriage 
by  the  rich  men  of  Rome),  and  had  the  litter  of  his  broth 
er  Gluintus,  which  was  following  him,  brought  up  to  the 
side  of  his  own. 

The  two  litters  were  deposited  by  each  other  in  the 
road,  and  the  carriers  moved  to  a  distance,  while  the  broth 
ers  conversed  for  a  moment  without  witnesses,  through 
the  doors.  It  was  agreed  that  duintus,  as  the  less  known 
and  more  easily  forgotten  of  the  two,  should  return  alone 
to  Antium,  their  native  town,  should  bring  away  the  mon 
ey  necessary  for  their  flight,  and  in  all  haste  rejoin  Cicero 
at  his  house  on  the  shore  of  Gaeta,  where  he  was  to  await 
his  embarkation.  Then  the  exiles,  as  if  with  a  presenti 
ment  of  their  eternal  separation,  lamented  the  extremity 
of  their  misfortune,  which  would  not  even  allow  of  their 
bearing  it  together,  wept  with  grief  in  the  road  in  the 
presence  of  their  slaves,  and  then  embraced  each  other 
several  times,  as  if  for  a  last  farewell. 

Gtuintus  turned  back  toward  Astura,  with  his  son,  in  or 
der  to  reach  Antium  by  the  mountain  road.  Cicero  pur 
sued  his  route  to  the  shore,  and  embarked  in  a  galley.  In 
one  of  the  bays  of  Gaeta,  where  still  may  be  seen  his  tomb 
rising  like  a  peak  amid  the  rocks  of  ocean,  he  possessed  a 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  433 

country  house,  adorned  with  all  the  luxury  and  furnished 
with  all  the  requirements  of  a  summer  residence  for  the 
great  citizens  of  Rome.  It  was  built  on  a  promontory, 
whence  the  view  embraced  a  vast  expanse  of  sea,  some 
times  calm  and  silent,  at  others  foaming  and  raging  against 
the  rocks — inclosed  by  a  semicircular  shore,  studded  with 
sea-ports,  temples,  Roman  villas,  vessels,  barks,  and  sails, 
which  gave  variety  to  its  coasts  and  waves.  The  Ete 
sian  breezes,  blowing  from  the  north  in  the  hottest  sea 
son,  cooled  the  air ;  terraced  gardens  descended  stage  by 
stage  from  the  airy  summit  to  the  humid  shore.  Caverns, 
scooped  by  nature  and  completed  by  art,  paved  with  mo 
saics,  and  divided  by  basins,  in  which  the  sea-water  pen 
etrated  by  unseen  channels,  afforded  cool  and  refreshing 
baths.  A  domestic  temple,  probably  the  one  he  had  con 
secrated  to  his  daughter  Tullia,  showed  over  head  its  daz 
zling  columns  and  capitals  of  Parian  marble,  half  hidden 
by  the  orange-trees,  laurels,  pines,  myrtles,  and  bunches 
of  high-growing  grape-vines,  which  cover  this  shore  with 
a  veil  ever  green. 

It  was  here  that  Cicero  disembarked  from  his  galley  to 
await  the  hour  for  his  departure,  and  the  return  of  his 
brother  Quintus.  The  triumvirs  were  still  several  stages 
from  Rome.  Campania  was  clear  of  troops,  and  every 
thing  announced  that  Antony's  assassins  would  not  keep 
pace  with  his  vengeance. 

But  his  vengeance  went  before  him.  As  soon  as  duin- 
tus  and  his  son  arrived  secretly  in  their  ancestral  home  at 
Antium,  to  sell  their  goods  and  take  the  produce  to  Cicero, 
domestic  treason  revealed  their  presence  to  the  emissaries 
of  the  triumvirs,  and  father  and  son  were  murdered  on 
their  own  hearth  because  they  bore  the  name  of  Cicero. 

On  this  news  arriving,  the  freedmen  and  slaves  of  Mar 
cus  Tullius  pressed  him  to  fly.  He  embarked  in  his  gal 
ley,  and  sailed  as  far  as  the  Circean  Cape,  one  of  the 
points  forming  the  Gulf  of  Gae'ta,  to  go  to  Africa.  He  in 
sisted  on  landing  there,  despite  the  entreaties  of  the  pilots 

VOL.  I.— T 


434  MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO. 

and  the  favorable  winds.  He  could  neither  drag  himself 
away  forever  from  the  shores  of  Italy,  nor  utterly  despair 
of  the  mercy  and  gratitude  of  Octavius. 

Alone  and  silently  he  walked  along  the  beach  by  the 
path  that  leads  to  Rome.  His  galley  followed  him  at  some 
distance,  behind  the  breakers.  After  thus  proceeding  sev 
eral  miles  in  great  perplexity  of  mind,  when  night  began 
to  close,  he  signaled  his  rowers  to  bring  the  boat  in-shore, 
and  again  trusted  himself  to  the  waves. 

He  confessed  to  his  freedmen  that,  weary  of  uncertainty 
and  flight,  he  had  for  a  moment  resolved  to  return  to  Rome, 
and  open  his  veins  in  the  presence  of  Octavius,  in  order  at 
least  to  avenge  himself  in  death  for  his  ingratitude,  tracing 
the  name  of  the  parricide  in  letters  of  blood,  and  letting 
loose  upon  him,  with  the  memory  of  his  crime,  a,  fury  which 
should  never  suffer  him  to  rest.  Fear  of  the  tortures  he 
might  be  made  to  undergo,  in  case  of  his  arrest  before  he 
effected  his  suicide,  held  him  back,  and  induced  him  to  re 
turn  on  board.  He  sailed  on  for  some  time,  undecided,  in 
sight  of  the  coast ,  then,  at  last,  recalled  by  some  unknown 
thoughts,  he  ordered  his  rowers  to  pull  back  to  his  country 
house  at  Gaeta,  which  he  had  quitted  in  the  morning. 
His  servants  obeyed  him,  with  tears  and  wailing  for  his 
approaching  death.  The  galley  brought  up  by  the  shore 
on  which  the  temple  was  built. 

Auguries,  a  language  of  divination  which  we  no  longer 
possess,  and  which  announced,  interpreted,  and  gave  so 
lemnity  to  all  the  fatal  actions  of  citizens  and  empires, 
warned  and  struck  terror  to  Cicero's  servants  on  his  land 
ing.  While  the  galley  was  waiting  to  dash  through  the 
line  of  breakers,  in  order  to  cast  anchor  under  the  prom 
ontory,  a  flight  of  crows,  ominous  birds,  perching  on  the 
cornices  of  the  temple,  rose  from  the  roof  with  loud  cries, 
and  wheeling  about  in  front  of  the  galley,  seemed  to  en 
deavor  to  heave  back  her  sails  and  yards  toward  the  open 
sea,  as  if  to  give  notice  of  a  danger  on  the  land.  Cicero, 
however,  whether  his  philosophy  raised  him  above  popu- 


MARCUS  TULLIUS  CICERO.  435 

lar  superstitions,  or  whether  he  accepted  the  omen  without 
caring  to  avoid  his  fate,  did  not  hesitate  to  ascend  the  steps 
leading  to  his  house.  He  entered  it,  and  throwing  him 
self,  completely  dressed,  on  a  bed,  in  order  to  rest  from  his 
toil  or  to  collect  his  thoughts,  threw  the  corner  of  his  toga 
over  his  face,  to  shade  it  from  the  last  glimmer  of  the  ex 
piring  day.  But  the  crows  who  had  endeavored  to  drive 
him  back  from  the  shore  had  followed  him  to  the  house. 
Whether  these  familiar  birds  were  rejoiced  to  see  their 
master  return,  or  whether,  flying  high  into  the  air,  they 
had  perceived,  before  the  servants,  the  unusual  glitter  of 
the  arms  of  the  numerous  soldiers  of  Antony,  spreading 
over  the  country  and  creeping  like  assassins  toward  Cic 
ero's  gardens,  they  were  agitated  as  if  by  a  secret  instinct. 
One  of  them,  flying  through  the  window,  which  was  open-, 
ed  to  catch  the  sea-breeze,  perched  upon  Cicero's  bed,  and 
drawing  back  with  its  bill  the  corner  of  his  cloak,  uncov 
ered  his  face,  and  seemed  to  press  him  to  quit  the  ill-omen 
ed  resting-place. 

At  this  mark  of  instinct  in  a  bird  the  servants  were 
moved  and  affected,  weeping,  and  reproaching  themselves 
with  having  less  prudence  and  zeal  for  their  master's  safe 
ty  than  mere  animals.  "  What !"  s^id  they,  "  shall  we 
wait  here  with  our  arms  folded,  to  be  calm  spectators  of 
the  death  of  this  illustrious  man,  while  the  very  birds 
watch  over  him,  and  show  their  indignation  at  the  im 
pending  crime  ?"  Animated  by  these  reflections,  Cicero's 
slaves  threw  themselves  at  his  feet,  and,  with  affectionate 
force,  compelled  him  to  get  back  into  his  litter,  and  carried 
him  by  circuitous  and  concealed  paths  through  his  gardens 
toward  the  shore,  off  which  his  galley  lay  at  anchor. 

They  had  hardly  gone  a  few  paces,  when  a  band  of  sol 
diers,  commanded  by  Herennius  and  "Popilius,  two  of  those 
partisan  leaders  who  sell  their  swords  for  every  crime, 
and  whose  only  principle  is  their  pay,  arrived  noiselessly 
at  the  garden  wall  on  the  land  side,  and,  findipg  the  gates 
shut,  burst  them  open,  and  rushed  to  the  house.  One  of 


436  MARCUS  TULLiUS  CICERO. 

these  chiefs,  Popilius,  had  once  been  defended  and  saved 
by  the  great  orator  on  a  charge  of  parricide.  He  was  anx 
ious  to  wash  out  his  debt  of  gratitude  in  the  blood  of  his 
benefactor.  He  summoned  the  servants  and  freedmen 
who  remained  in  the  house  to  show  him  their  master's  re 
treat.  They  all  answered  that  they  had  not  seen  him, 
thus  gaining  time  for  his  escape ;  when  a  base  coward 
named  Philologus,  a  beloved  pupil  of  Cicero,  a  son  of  his 
brother's  freedman,  whom  he  had  himself  trained  to  the 
pursuit  of  science  and  literature,  pointed  out  to  the  sol 
diers  the  garden  path  by  which  his  patron  and  second  fa 
ther  had  gone  down  toward  the  sea.  At  this  fatal  signal, 
Herennius  and  Popilius,  with  their  troop,  spurred  on  upon 
the  track  of  the  litter,  and  made  the  hollow  path  to  the 
sea  echo  with  their  shouts,  with  the  clash  of  their  armor, 
and  the  tramp  of  their  horses. 

Hearing  the  approach  of  the  tumult,  which  put  an  end 
to  his  irresolution,  and  quieted  his  mind  with  the  certain 
ty  of  death,  Cicero  resolved  at  least  to  face  it,  not  to  fly. 
He  ordered  his  slaves  to  place  the  litter  on  the  sand.  He 
was  obeyed.  He  awaited  his  assassins  without  trembling, 
resting  his  elbow  on  his  knee,  and  supporting  his  chin 
with  his  hand,  as  he^was  accustomed  to  do  when  in  quiet 
reflection  in  the  senate-house  or  in  his  own  library ;  and 
looking  with  a  steadfast  countenance  on  Herennius  and 
Popilius,  saved  them  the  trouble  of  dragging  him  out  of 
his  litter,  and  stretched  out  his  neck  to  them,  as  if,  by  has 
tening  to  meet  the  blow,  he  was  anticipating  his  immor 
tality. 

Herennius  struck  off  his  head,  and  carried  it  himself  to 
Antony,  in  order  that  no  one  might  be  beforehand  with 
him  in  meeting  the  first  burst  of  the  tyrant's  joy,  the  re 
ward  of  the  crime  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  sword. 

Antony  had  just  arrived  in  Rome,  and  was  presiding 
over  the  assembly  of  the  people  for  the  election  of  fresh 
magistrates,  at  the  moment  that  Herennius  pressed  through 
the  crowd  to  offer  him  the  head  of  the  savior  of  Rome. 


MARCUS  TULL1US  CICERO.  437 

"  It  is  enough !"  said  Antony,  on  seeing  the  livid  face  of 
the  man  before  whom  he  had  so  often  himself  turned  pale  ; 
"  there  is  an  end  of  the  proscriptions  !"  showing  by  this 
expression  that  the  death  of  Cicero  alone  was  worth  a 
multitude  of  victims,  and  had  freed  his  ambition  from  the 
last  remnant  of  Roman  virtue. 

He  ordered  Cicero's  bleeding  head  to  be  nailed  between 
his  hands  upon  the  rostrum,  thus  crucifying  by  the  two 
organs  of  human  eloquence,  voice  and  gesture,  the  highest 
oratory  that  ever  existed.  But  Fulvia,  Antony's,  wife,  was 
not  satisfied  with  this  retaliation.  She  had  the  head  of 
the  orator  brought  to  her,  took  it  in  her  hands,  placed  it 
on  her  knees,  boxed  its  ears,  tore  the  tongue  from  between 
the  lips,  pierced  it  with  the  long  gold  pin  that  the  Roman 
ladies  used  to  fasten  up  their  hair,  and  prolonged,  like  the 
Furies  whom  she  resembled,  her  vengeance  beyond  the 
grave,  to  the  eternal  shame  of  her  sex  and  of  the  Roman 
name ! 

After  Cicero's  death,  the  triumvirs  fought  with  each 
other  for  the  Republic.  Octavius  won  it.  Tyranny,  which 
until  then  had  been  a  temporary  eclipse  of  liberty,  became 
a  permanent  institution.  It  dispensed  with  all  virtue  in 
the  people.  It  gave  the  Romans,  accordingly  as  their 
masters  proved  virtuous  or  vicious,  sometimes  periods  of 
prosperous  slavery,  but  more  frequently  reigns  of  moral 
abasement  and  sanguinary  atrocity,  a  disgrace  to  their  an 
nals,  and  a  curse  to  the  human  race. 

Such  is  one  of  the  great  pages  of  the  history  of  Rome. 
Others  will  be  given  hereafter. 


END    OF    VOL.  I. 


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